


A Flight on Wings

by Uniasus



Category: D.Gray-man
Genre: Action/Adventure, Alternate Timelines, Gen, Post ch 208, Theology
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-05-20
Updated: 2014-09-21
Packaged: 2018-01-25 21:37:34
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 9
Words: 52,499
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1663337
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Uniasus/pseuds/Uniasus
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Allen's on the run, and to be honest he wouldn't have lasted so long if Tyki and Rhode didn't help out on occasion. But he hates their methods.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Originally on ff.net, and I'm moving it here. Branches off from ch. 208 , aka after Allen leaves but before Johnny and Kanda find him, and before Link came back in the picture cuz he totally wasn't around when I started writing this....way over two years ago. Yikes, the hiatus this manga has taken is super long because it hasn't progressed much since I wrote this.

Johnny didn’t want to break the silence in Reever’s office. Did he just give him permission to leave? He didn’t move, just continued to kneel on the floor and watch his supervisor; the Australian was glaring at his own clenched fist. 

“Do you think,” he choked out slowly, “that maybe you should get more information from your grandma before you leave?”

“Well, no.” Johnny shrugged. “She’s never changed how the store has run-“

“But didn’t she move shop recently?”

Johnny made to open his mouth to say no, but Reever cut him off again. “I mean, you should at least wait until she gives you a location.”

The younger scientist frowned behind his glasses until he got it. He could leave, but only after they received some news of Allen. It wasn’t something he liked, it’d been months and still no one had seen the teen. Johnny just wanted to go out there and look for clues! But without a starting point, he probably would end up lying in an alley somewhere lost and without Allen. 

Staying though, at least at the Order he would have a regular bed. It was the most likely place to hear news too. And if news never came?

But it would. The Order had lots of people in the field, Johnny had hope, and best of all he had permission. 

“That might be a good idea.”

* * *

Some days were worse than others. Today was one of those. 

Allen liked hiding in cities, it seemed people interfered with Apocryphos’s ability to find him. As did the presence of other Innocence, a reason why he preferred to hide out in cities with akuma or Innocence nearby with the understanding that Koumi would send someone from the Order eventually and their presence could help hide him for a little bit. 

Only this city wasn’t that large, and there were no exorcists nearby. 

He tried to calm down his arm, shrink down the wings stretching towards the living Innocence. Judging by the height, he was above him. If Allen could just get on that train!

A girl found him, calling him an angel. He smiled at the thought, at the irony she didn’t know. But she helped, gave him something to focus on. 

Apocryphos had said it himself, Allen had a great connection to his Innocence, and it was at times like this it came in handy. He didn’t want to be absorbed, he didn’t want to broadcast his position, and didn’t want to put the little girl in danger. And Crown Clown complied, understanding, but not entirely pleased judging by how his left arm was still covered in tiny wings and throbbed. 

He hated fighting with Crown Clown. He fought with Neah sometimes, but he always won and the Noah’s thoughts eventually retreated. Plus, he talked. Crown Clown didn’t. Allen never knew what exactly it was feeling, he only had its reactions to go by, and the fights were never just over. He could feel the effects: the pain in his arm, light headedness, general weakness. After a round with Neah, all he felt was relief. 

The train whistle blew, and the girl’s parents called out for her. “Bye-bye Mr. Angel,” she whispered and then walked out of the alley. 

Allen waited, to see if losing her as a focus would effect his Innocence, but nothing happened and he let out a sigh of relief. Apocryphos was further away. Which gave him the perfect opportunity to hop on the train.

* * *

Allen stayed hidden on the train until the end of the line, getting off at a place that reminded him of Crowley’s hometown. There was a large, dark castle, but instead of being on the outskirts of town, the town circled it and the plaza in front of its gates. And, yes, there were two akuma present. 

He had recovered enough to win the money for lodging and a bit of food. Not enough by far, but he lived on what he could get. He didn’t have the cash to feed Timcampy too, but the golem seemed content with eating the stubs of cigarettes in ashtrays. From his room on the third day, he watched an akuma enter a bakery, heard a shot, and then watched the young man come back out with an overly stretched smile.

Normally, he would have killed the akuma. But right now, it unknowingly served as part of his security detail and Allen was loath to get rid of it. The soul would be saved, eventually, and as for those killed Allen made sure to attend the funeral. 

Eventually, personal from the Order came by. First a finder, who went around collecting information on the five recent deaths. An exorcist was soon to come, and with there only being level 1s in the town, it was sure to be someone low leveled like Timothy. 

Allen didn’t stalk the train station to see who had come, and he didn’t need eyes to tell that Apocryphos had.

He went to find someplace to hide.

* * *

“Oh! Good afternoon Cardinal,” Lenalee bowed, suitcase in front of her knees. “I would have greeted you earlier, but I didn’t realize anyone else from the Order was on the train.”

“It’s alright child,” the Cardinal said, scooping his hand and pushing the air to encourage her to turn around and proceed in getting off the train. “I have only been on this line since just before lunch, and judging by your looks you have been riding a great deal longer.”

Lenalee sighed. “Kanda and I have been riding trains for two days now.”

“Kanda?”

“Oh, you may not have heard. Yuu Kanda came back to us earlier this month.” She smiled at the older man from over her left shoulder. 

“Glad to hear.”

They met Kanda on the platform, and after discovering they had plans to stay in the same inn walked together, Kanda scowling and Lenalee doing her best to keep small talk going. But it was hard when the Cardinal wouldn’t give a name or reason for his visit. 

Once at the inn however, the Cardinal didn’t enter with them. “Is something wrong?” Lenalee asked, while Kanda sported his usual I-glare-because-I-can look at the street. 

“Not at all, my child. It’s just such a nice day that I think I’ll take a walk before checking in.”

“Oh, okay. Take care!”

The Cardinal gave a slight nod, and then turned to walk down the street. Lenalee watched him until he took a corner and then caught up to Kanda, who was already inside grabbing a room key. 

“You know, it wouldn’t have killed you to talk a little bit. That Cardinal was the only one to stick up for Allen.”

“Che,” he responded, swinging his hair around and making his way up the inn’s stairs. But it was a softer sound than Lenalee remembered him making, and she realized that maybe, just maybe, Kanda might actually _like_ Allen now.

It would be hard not to, after what he had did. She wasn’t there of course, when Alma was revealed to be still alive. But she had heard various stories from those who were. And there was no escaping the fact that part of the reason Allen had been locked up in the first place was what he did for Kanda and Alma. 

Kanda wasn’t the type of person to let that go. 

Their room was tiny, a box with maybe a foot around three sides of the two beds in it, beds that were separated themselves only by a support beam for the roof on the far wall. 

Lenalee climbed over the left bed to open the window. “The Cardinal was right you know, it is a nice day.”

“Che, let’s get going. Your annoying brother said there were akuma here.”

Lenelee giggled. “You just want to see how Mugen handles in a real fight now that you’re a crystal type. “

The other exorcist didn’t answer, but by the way he was waiting by the door Lenalee figured she was right. 

There was a chorus of screams from outside, not close but not too far either. Without even thinking about it Lenalee crouched in the window; Dark Boots activated, a hand between them, and the other against the opposite side of the window frame for balance. Kanda ducked under her arm and stuck his head out the window, looking down. 

A flock of pigeons flew up from the center of town, where a large castle stood. “That way,” Lenalee called out, not bothering to waste the time pointing required and leaping in the air. She just caught the sound of the dark haired teen curse air-defining Innocence, but when she twisted in the air she saw Kanda leap and land on the roof of the next building over. 

She lowered herself and landed lightly next to him. “Sorry, I usually do missions by myself.” He grunted, as usual, and they set off at his pace. 

They stopped above the city’s plaza and stared down at the fight below, standing on the castle’s gates. There was a Noah down there, Tyki by the looks of it, and he was fighting a strange creature with the help of a level 2 akuma. The creature was human shaped, but white and monstrous, its hands ended with spiraled, feathered blades. 

“Why must you continue to get in the way?!” it snarled, throwing Tyki into a wall. 

“What can I say?” the Noah responded, bringing himself to his knees. “The Earl doesn’t like your plans for Allen. Nor does he, actually.”

“Allen doesn’t have a choice.”

“Kanda,” Lenalee whispered, grabbing the male teen’s hand and squeezing tightly. “Allen’s alive!”

“Did you doubt it? The beansprout is damn hard to kill. What I want to know is what this thing is and why it wants him.”

They watched Tyki cause an explosion of dark matter, destroying the cobblestones and the store front of a bakery. The creature however, just stood up amongst the smoke, body healing at the rate of a Noah. He threw a spear at the akuma creeping up behind him, destroying it.

“This thing is trouble,” Kanda said, watching Tyki get thrown into the top of a stained glass window of the church on the plaza’s other side. “From what Lavi told me, that Noah isn’t a pushover.”

“No, he's not.” Lenalee answered. 

“I’m tired of your distractions,” the creature half shouted, stalking towards a downed Tyki. He was having trouble getting up. 

“A distraction,” Kanda hissed. “The beansprout’s nearby.” He leapt, Lenalee trailing after him by their still attached hands. 

“Let me,” she said, and before Kanda could protest leapt high into the air. Kanda gripped her hand to the point that it hurt, but she didn’t say anything, too focused on finding a bit of wind for them to stand on. Once steady, he released his grip. “See if we can see him from up here.”

Their vantage point from above the plaza didn’t reveal Allen, so Lenalee started hopping around in an ever widening spiral. 

“There,” Kanda pointed, towards a narrow street heading out of the city. There was a bunch of white moving down it at a fast pace. “That’s gotta be the beansprout, I don’t know of anyone else who wears that much white.”

“Hang on,” the Chinese girl said, and used her legs to launch them at a roof further down Allen’s path. They landed just as a familiar checkered heart-shaped door rose up from the street. 

Lenalee opened her mouth to shout a warning to Allen, but Kanda’s hand over her mouth stopped her from making a sound. 

“We’re enemies, remember? If we get any closer we’ll have to obey our orders and attack him. The small Noah’s no push over either.”

Lenalee stomped on Kanda’s foot with a heel, pushing his hand down and whirling around to glare at the taller teen. “I know that!” she hissed. “I know exactly what Rhode can do, but I also know that if we disobey orders, no one has to know! I just want to talk to him.”

“If we show ourselves, he’ll run. We’ll learn more if we just listen.”

“No!” Lenalee made to jump, but Kanda wrapped his arms around her from behind and lifted her into the air. She squirmed and kicked her legs, but couldn’t reach back far enough to land a blow. Kanda moved one hand up to cover her mouth to keep her from yelling out.

“Rhode!”

Lenalee froze as she heard Allen call out to the Noah. Kanda crept close to the roof’s edge, allowing both of them to look over it. 

Allen stood facing the ninth Noah. He didn’t look good; he was filthy and had the hallow look of one who had gone without food or sleep for far too long. But most noticeable was his left arm. It had sprouted a multitude of miniature wings and was trembling, Allen was using his right hand to keep it steady. 

“Hello All~en!”

“Look Rhode, I appreciate Tyki being a distraction, again,” Allen wavered, stumbling sideways into the wall and his breathing suddenly getting heavier. Timcampy hovered near him worriedly. Had Allen gotten tan, or was his skin darker? “But Apocryphos is almost here and I need to get away!”

“You could always come with me.” Rhode rocked on her feet. “With my door, you could get away faster.”

“Thank you, but no. I have no intention of joining your family.”

“But I insist,” Rhode took a step closer. “You won’t get far in this condition.” Allen was gasping now, sweat dripping down his face. His skin color was obvious now, a light grey.

“I can…if you just…leave.”

“Incoming!” Tyki skidded around the corner, sprinting towards his sister and Allen. 

“This way!” Rhode opened her doors, and Tyki scooped up Allen on his way to them, grabbing Timcampy in his spare hand.

“Put me down Tyki!”

“No can do, boyo. Where to Rhode?”

“Now that we have Allen, I’m thinking the city of love.”

“ _Ah, perfectionner pour un couple uni.”_ Tyki half sang, leaping through the doors. Rhode stepped in after him, and the door sank back down into the street. A minute later, the white creature, Apocryphos Allen had called him, rounded the corner into the empty street. 

“Don’t worry Allen,” it said, slowly changing forms. “I’ll save you soon.”

Lenalee would have screamed at the show of Apocryphos turning into the Cardinal, but Kanda’s hand kept her quite. He backed away from the edge, and leaped backwards onto the building behind them. The teen stumbled on the tiles, but quickly regained his footing. After five minutes, enough time to ensure that the Cardinal had gone, he lightly placed Lenalee down and removed his hands. 

“Oh my god,” Lenalee cried, tears running down her face. “That thing, it’s after Allen! And did you see how bad he looked? And the Noah? What do you think they’ll do to him?”

“Nothing.” 

“N-nothing?”

“You’re right, the beansprout’s in bad shape. The Noah could have taken him by force anytime they wanted, but haven’t. So I don’t think that’ll change now. But they don’t want Apocryphos to get him. I think they just helped him get away. “

“Really?”

In a rare show of tenderness, Kanda reached out a thumb to dry her tears. “Yes. But we should go, tell your brother what we saw.”

Lenalee nodded, and the set back towards the hotel to gather their supplies. 

“Kanda.” She paused, two buildings away from the hotel. With a snort, he backtracked. 

“What?”

“Allen’s arm, it was like that, a little, when he left. You think that’s why he left the Order? Cuz Apocryphos attacked him?”

“Che. Maybe. How am I supposed to know?”

She signed. “You’re not. Come on, let’s go.”

* * *

“Let me go Tyki!” Allen demanded. 

“Okay boyo.” And so he did. 

The only problem was Rhode’s door had taken them to the top of the newly constructed Eiffel Tower, and Allen had a long way to fall. 

“Bloody hell!” he yelled, hearing Tyki’s laughter fade as he plummeted downward, Tim pulling unsuccessfully on the back of his shirt to slow him. Quickly, Allen focused on his Innocence. This far from Apocryphos, it was well behaved. With a single thought, he brought it under control and activated Clown Belt, catching the last arch and feeling his arm jerk painfully as he stopped. He looked down, there was still roughly ten feet to go. 

Slowly, he lowered himself and then jumped the final two feet. He stood hunched over with his hands on his knees, gasping. The few people around this early in the morning started at him. They stared even more when Rhode and Tyki landed next to him. Tyki gave them a look that had them scatter. 

“You alright Allen?” Rhode asked, leaning over to look into his face. 

“Just…give me a moment,” he answered, trying to control his breathing. While Neah never made a move or sound when Apocryphos was near, he had a sneaking fear the 14th was scared of him and Allen didn’t blame him, his body always reacted. The Noah genes had an automatic reaction to Innocence; having been around Crown Clown all his life there was little concern there unless he stabbed himself, but Apocryphos was a living Innocence and called out to the Noah memory more strongly. Stronger than even being stabbed by Mugen. Just being near the independent Innocence made him weak and wobbly as well as ashen. 

But now he watched as his right hand returned to it’s regular pasty color and breathed a sigh of relief. “Okay,” he said, standing up straight. “I’m okay now.”

“Good. We need to talk.” Tyki grabbed his arm and lead them towards a small garden shed not far from where they landed. The Noah shoved Allen inside, Rhode skipped in, and then Tyki closed the door as he entered himself. The lack of windows had him halfway open it for the sake of light. 

“Look boyo, we’re not going to ask you to join us. You will on your own eventually, you can’t hold back the 14th forever. Give it a year.”

Allen narrowed his eyes to glare, but didn’t protest. The thing was, he had learned a bit from the few decent conversations he had had with Neah. The most important being that he was already a Noah; he was able to control his appearance at will (Apocryphos aside), could manipulate small amounts of dark matter (which is how the Ark worked), and felt drawn to others of the Noah family. Some more than others of course. 

The difference was that when Tyki or Jasdevi (he wasn’t sure about Rhode, she was from a previous generation) became Noah, their human half acknowledged and accepted being a Noah. But they hadn’t really become the Noah, hadn’t fully accepted the ancient genes and memory inside of them. Because if they had, they would have had memories of their previous reincarnation’s time with Neah. And that would mean Tyki’s and Allen’s relationship would not be as it was. 

Allen had acknowledged being a Noah, but hadn’t accepted it, still thought of himself as human. Neah kept trying to convince him otherwise, kept pushing memories on him to merge with the Noah, with Neah. Neah had been the first 14th after all. And slowly but surely, Neah was winning. When was the last time Allen had killed an akuma? And his memory was something fuddled. 

So he didn’t say anything to Tyki. He was most likely right.

“You wanna be an exorcist, fine.” Tyki continued. He threw something towards the teen an Allen caught it, a raw cube of Innocence. “The only thing that makes an exorcist an exorcist is that he has Innocence. So use that one instead and get rid of Crown Clown. It’s tainted.”

“I can’t do that! Innocence has to sync with an accommodator, it can’t be forced. This Innocence,” Allen drew attention to the cube in his hand, “and I can’t work together.“

“Use your head, exorcist. I’m sure you’ve noticed by now, but Innocence reacts to emotions and thoughts. Think at it. Tell it why you need it, what you plan to do, and you should sync.”

“Please Allen?” Rhode slid up beside him and slipped her hand in his. “This way you could still be an exorcist, without having to worry about Apocryphos.” She pouted, and Neah forced a memory on him. Of Rhode, half naked and above him, looking at him with sultry eyes before leaning down to suckle at his earlobe. 

Allen tried to take a step back, but Rhode’s grip on his hand stopped him. “I’ll, I’ll try,” he managed to say around his suddenly dry throat.

“Thank you, Allen.” She grinned up at him, and then forced him to the floor with a kick to the back of his knees. 

“Rhode, what-“

But then there was a candle driving into his left shoulder and Rhode shouted “Tyki, now!”.

“Stupid golem,” the Portuguese Noah said as Timcampy attacked his ear, and Allen watched him bring forth a Tease from his palm and sent it out after Tim. Tease was bigger, and quickly had Tim pinned. Tyki then walked towards Allen. He had been trying to throw off Rhode, to no avail, but froze as he felt Tyki’s hand on the back of his shoulder and felt him summon another large Tease and commanded it to eat through the shoulder joint. 

It was quick, but by no means painless. Allen screamed, his shoulder jerking in an attempt to shake off Tyki’s golem, but the Noah held his body close and restricted his movements. 

Suddenly, Allen felt off balance and titled right to crash on the floor. There was a dull thump, and he watched Rhode drop his Innocence endowed arm on the floor. In order to stop himself from screaming, Allen bit down on his lower lip. Bit through it actually. His right hand attempted to staunch the bleeding, but it failed. Blood still poured from his left shoulder, making his fingers slippery and his clothes sticky.

Through the pain, Allen saw Rhode tenderly wrap his left hand in cloth and then place it in a small purse (how did it fit in there?) covered in bows. Tyki kicked the new Innocence cube, which had dropped from Allen’s finger when Rhode attacked him, into the exorcist’s forehead. 

“Here you go, boyo. Make sure the Musician heals you properly. Maybe he’ll even give you a new arm.”

Allen glared at him from the floor, to his pain addled mind it looked like both Noah were smiling. They probably were. Tyki pushed open the door for Rhode, wiggled his fingers at Allen in farewell, recalled Tease from Tim, and closed the door entirely on his way out. 

In the dark, the pool of blood beneath him seemed larger than it should be. Allen flopped into it entirely, the elbow he was supporting himself on giving out. Closing his eyes, he felt Tim poke him in the check and activated his Noah genes. There was a prickling on his forehead as the stigmata appeared, and another in his shoulder as the wound sealed itself. He could have grown another arm, it’s true. But it felt like a betrayal to Crown Clown to do so. 

And maybe he hoped, just a little, that even if Tyki destroyed it a second time it would still return to him. 

He turned over, rolling out of the blood, and the extra innocence cube poked his cheek instead of the dislodged Tim. 

_Innocence,_ he thought, _help me save the souls of this world. The akuma, the human, the Noah. Being an exorcist is all I want._

Allen just laid there, thinking at the glowing cube until he drifted off into darkness.

* * *

Paris was…bigger than he expected. Sure, he knew it had about 300,000 people, but he never knew that 300,000 was…was this. They were everywhere! The streets, the alleys, the rooftops! And they all spoke French! Of which Johnny knew absolutely nothing. 

But he was determined to not give up. Paris was his first and only clue to find Allen, the teen just had to be there! Johnny had made him a nice new coat, of the same material as the uniforms, but lacking the large star on the right shoulder. Allen wasn’t part of the Order anymore, but he was still Allen. Still an exorcist.

And Johnny was still…lost. 

He had gotten to Paris that morning, which was pretty quick considering Lenalee and Kanda only just got back from their mission the previous evening. But Reever had snuck him into the Ark, whispering that if he didn’t go now Allen might move on and gave him a satchel full of money. 

“I’m sure Allen hasn’t eaten properly in months. Take care of him. Oh, and here.” Reever had pulled out a thick envelop from the satchel and then dropped it back in. “We all wrote him letters.”

“I won’t forget this, Reever.” Johnny had sobbed.

“Get going,” his supervisor had said, tears in his eyes too, as he pushed Johnny into the Ark’s gateway. 

But go where? Was Allen still in Paris? And if so, where was he? Johnny felt under prepared and overwhelmed. To top it off, he had missed out on a last breakfast with Jerry. His stomach was not happy. 

There was a clanging coming from a few streets over, getting louder, and he walked over to investigate. A dray rounded the corner, the horses pulling it going from a trot to a canter once they had completed the turn. The driver had all his attention on the horses, but the man next to him was ringing a bell and shouting something in French. Johnny caught the cross for ambulance painted on the side as it went by him, and when he looked into the dray from behind he got a look of a white haired boy. 

“Allen!” he shouted, pushing aside a man to run into the street after the dray. “Allen!” 

Allen didn’t react, but Johnny continued to run after vehicle. Man was he glad he had gotten in shape. 

But he was no match for a team of horses, and when the ambulance turned another corner three blocks ahead of him Johnny was scared he would lose it. He skidded around the corner and was thrilled to see the dray had stopped not to far down the street in front of a white washed building. He reached it just as two nurses were carrying Allen through the front doors. 

“Allen!” he shouted again, forcing his legs up the three steps to half throw himself on the stretcher, starling the two nurses and causing them to halt in the lobby. They jabbered at him in French, but he didn’t understand what they were saying. 

It was indeed Allen, an Allen covered in blood, missing an arm, who looked terrible but was also alive. “Allen…” Johnny reached out touch his cheek, but before his hand could make contact he was pulled roughly away and the nurses took off. 

Johnny found himself face to face with the bell ringer, who was talking at super speed in French. He knew German and Italian, why couldn’t Allen be in Rome?

“I’m sorry, I don’t understand.” He kept repeating, shaking his head and glancing down the hallway Allen had been taken. 

With a sigh, the man steered Johnny down a different hallway and into an office. There was a dark haired woman in it, and she gave off the same aura as the Order’s Matron. He wondered if they were related. 

The two French citizens talked, before she turned to address Johnny. “I am the Head Nurse, Mademoiselle Giard. You do not speak French?” He accent was thick, but Johnny understood her and nodded. 

“No, I speak English.”

“And the man that just came in, you know him?”

“Yes.”

She said something to the bell ringer, who nodded, tipped his hat, and left. That left Johnny squirming under her gaze as she looked him over. “Follow me,” she said, standing up to move around her desk and into the hospital. 

Johnny stayed on her heels as she went down the main hallway, making inquires in French, until she opened a door to a room to reveal Allen lying on a bed.

“Allen!” Johnny cried and ran forward to clutch the teen’s hand. He stirred a little at noise, but remained unconsciousness. The cover’s near Allen’s shoulder twitched, and he saw a flash of gold. “What happened?” he asked Mlle. Giard. 

“I was hoping you could say. The blood on his clothes was fresh, but there is no cut on his body. And he has gone too long without food or rest.”

“I haven’t seen him in a few months. It was by chance I found him here.”

“Hmmf,” the nurse turned and left. 

Tim flew out from the bed sheet and landed on Johnny’s shoulder. The scientist collected the golem in his palms and cupped Tim to his chest with a single a hand. With the other, he grasped Allen’s cold fingers. “I’m here Allen, you don’t have to be alone anymore.”

Tim nipped his fingers harshly. 

“Well, now you have human company.”


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Apparently, Tyki's advice worked.

When Allen woke, the smell of the Order’s medical ward filled his nose. Memories and feelings of home flooded through him and he couldn’t help but smile. 

Until he remembered the Order wanted him dead. 

He snapped open his eyes and was met with a white ceiling. The Order’s was gray, just like the walls and floor. Good, so he hadn’t been captured while passed out. 

The sound of snoring and warmth in his right hand had him direct his gaze to his hip. There was someone with curly hair drooling on the bed, fast asleep. Allen tried to gently reclaim his hand, but the movement caused the unknown man to stir and blink sleepily at Allen. After a moment, a thought must had accrued to him because the man was suddenly alert and searching in his pockets for something. When he pulled out a pair of glasses and put them on, Allen finally recognized him. 

“You’re awake!” Johnny grabbed Allen into a crushing hug. The teen had no idea Johnny was even capable of crushing him. Tim, who had been napping on his head, flapped his wings in protest.

“Johnny? What are you doing here?”

The scientist let him go and then looked around for a chair. He had slept on his knees all night. Really, he shouldn’t have done that. Allen patted his bed and then scooted over a bit. He tried to use both arms to do so, but then remembered Tyki had cut his left arm off and butt shuffled over instead. 

Johnny sat. “I resigned from the Order.”

“What, why?” 

“You’ve always done your best to help us, so I figured it wasn’t right that you didn’t have help now. Not when you need it most.”

“Johnny,” Allen could feel tears in the corner of his eyes because in the almost four months he had been on the road he had never thought anyone would come after him. In fact, considering the circumstances of his departure, he wouldn’t be surprised if most of the Order actually hated him. 

“Johnny,” he began again, tears making their way down his checks in slow tracks, “I’m so, so happy that you found me.”

The scientist crawled forward and pulled the teen into a hug. Allen just absorbed the warmth, enjoyed the little bit of home he now had. It had been so long since he’d seen a friend, Tyki and Rhode didn’t count especially not after what they just did, and Allen hadn’t realized just how homesick he had been. He understood Lenalee a lot better now, how her friends were her family and her world. The people he wanted to protect. 

Allen pushed Johnny away and hastily scrubbed away the remains of his tears. “I’m happy you’re here and all Johnny, but you have to leave. I’m being chased by this monster, and I can’t let you get hurt.”

“But you get hurt all the time Allen! It’s not fair that only you should take blows for you friends. I came because I want to help you!”

“Seriously Johnny, this thing is something I have no chance of beating.”

“Only because you’ve been alone. Now that I’m here, you will.”

“Sorry, but I don’t think you’ll help much.”

“Than at least let me take care of you. Reever gave me money, I can get you food, you’re so skinny when was the last time you ate anyway? Please Allen.”

“You’re not going to leave me alone, are you?”

“No.”

“At least let me fill you in on what’s going on before you commit to a life on the run.”

And so Allen told him, starting with Apocryphos ‘s attack on him and Link in the Order’s dungeons, how he recovered at Mother’s house, and had been running ever since. How his Innocence had been acting up, what Neah told him, and how Tyki and Rhode had cut off his arm and…and…

“Tyki threw a cube of Innocence at me, told me to force myself to sync with. I don’t think it worked, I’m still armless, so I think it’s still there. Do you mind go getting it? I don’t feel right, leaving it in the open. And maybe Tyki was right. It’s not like I’m no longer an accommodator.”

“But now that you don’t have Crown Clown,” Johnny thought out loud, “doesn’t that mean you’re safe from Apocryphos?” 

Allen shook his head. “No, he still wants to absorb me, but he’ll have a harder time finding me now. Plus we still have to worry about the Noah.”

“Right.” Johnny got off the bed and started towards the door. 

“Johnny,” Allen called. “Think about what I told you, before you decided to stay. Take Tim, have him show you anything you want to see.”

“Sure, but that means you have to read these while I’m gone.” He placed a think envelope on Allen’s lap. “See you soon, Allen.”

“Kay.”

Curious, Allen opened the envelope and peaked inside. Letters. Letters from home. Letters, that he didn’t think he could read right now. 

Hoping for a distraction, he got out of bed with the intention of walking around the hospital. The cold air hit his skin, they had taken his shirt off and he couldn’t find it, but Allen could deal. He walked towards the door, but paused when he saw something in the dull mirror over the sink across the room from his bed. 

It looked like Tyki had been right, because there were now two black wings tattooed on his back and Allen didn’t remember getting them. Curious, he reached around to touch them with his hand. 

They felt just his left arm used to. 

Concentrating, he activated this new Innocence. It wasn’t as natural as Crown Clown, not nearly as smooth or intuitive as it had been even when he had first arrived at the Order, but he was still able to activate it. 

And stare in shock at the reflection of him with white angel wings.

* * *

When Johnny came back to Allen’s room, the white haired teen looked very sheepish, as if he had hastily hid something. The letters were spread around him, but it didn’t look as if Allen had opened any of them. It was more like they were for show, for when someone came into the room.

“Oh, it’s you.” Allen breathed in relief and Johnny sent him a quizzical look. “I thought you might have been a nurse.”

“No, but there’s one bringing lunch who’ll be here in a little bit.”

“Oh good, I’m starving.”

Johnny mentally winced, as this time it probably wasn’t an exaggeration. Allen was just in hospital bottoms with no shirt and the scientist could count his ribs. It made his two scars, the large run one running up his right side and the small stab wound to the left of his stomach more stark and prominent. 

Seeing Allen’s body, a child’s body, like that just reinforced Johnny’s desire to help out the exorcist. And Allen was his favorite, so he wasn’t going anywhere. 

“I’m not leaving,” he declared, sitting down in the room’s single chair he had snagged earlier and giving Allen a serious, determined look. He hadn’t looked at anything Tim could have shown him, it wouldn’t have made a difference anyway. After a moment he sighed, deflating a bit. “But I don’t know how much I’ll be able to help. I couldn’t find the Innocence.”

“Ah, about that –“

“Eat!” a nurse said, announcing her entrance into the room with one of the few bits of English she knew. Allen clammed up and leaned back into his bed to allow the nurse to place a tray over his lap and the letters there. Johnny gave her a smile and it widened as she handed him an extra juice. 

Allen was already halfway done with the meal by the time she left the room and Johnny silently handed him the juice. Compared to the amount Allen had at the Order, this was pitiful. The teen was even going slower than normal, as if to fool himself it was more than it truly was. 

“Here,” Johnny handed him the paper bag at his feet. He figured the hospital wouldn’t feed him and had stopped at a deli for lunch. And knowing Allen’s stomach, had bought three extra sandwiches. 

Allen’s face lit up as he looked into the bag. “Johnny, if you stay out of sight when Apocryphos comes and feed me the rest of the time, that would be wonderful. Don’t worry about not finding the Innocence cube, in fact.”

He turned so his back faced Johnny. There were two wings tattooed on it, solid black silhouettes whose edges spoke of feathers. 

“You got a tattoo?”

“Um, no. Tyki was right, I synced with the Innocence.”

“Is that even possible? I mean, you already have – had Crown Clown.”

“Well, I think my sync rate is low. I know I was over 80 when I joined the Order and this isn’t as natural. I’m at 50? 60? But.”

Allen’s back gave off a familiar glow and Johnny leaned back quickly, not aware he had moved forward to get a closer look until then. From the exorcist’s back sprouted feathered wings, white not black like the marks. He reached out a hand to touch them, but couldn’t quite bring himself to do so, leaving his palm hovering over the feathers. 

“You can touch. I was playing with them before you came it. I can…feel them, as weird as it sounds. I feel as if I’m suddenly much larger and it’ll take getting use to where they are. But when you touch them, it’s just like touching my skin. To the wings anyway. It still felt like feathers to my hand.”

Johnny did, and was surprised at how unsoft the wings felt. He was used to down feathers, but these weren’t soft. There was a hard base in the center, the parts of the feather coming off of it. Giving, smoothing to the touch, but not rub-your-face-against-it soft. Which made sense, these were the wings of a bird. 

Tim bit a wing, and Allen quickly drew them in, almost clipping Johnny’s nose. “That hurt Timcampy!” Sheepish, the golem settled into Allen’s lap.

“Can you fly?” Johnny asked.

“I can flap.” Allen stretched his wings back out and did so. “As to whether I can fly, let’s find out once the nurses let me go.” 

“And some where low. I don’t want you coming back here within an hour of us leaving.”

“Me neither!” Allen laughed, and Johnny couldn’t help but smile at the sound. It had been so long since he heard it.

* * *

“He’s really going to follow us here?” Tyki asked, staring out at the white scenery all around him. 

“He’d follow us anywhere, well, Allen’s hand anywhere.” Rhode answered and kicked aforementioned wrapped hand with her left toe. 

“But the South Pole? Very few normal humans have even been here. And there’s   
no transportation either. Apocryphos would have to swim or fly to get here. There’s no reason he’d think Allen would come here.”

“One: He’d actually just walk along the bottom of the ocean. So we could just leave Allen’s arm here and go do other stuff but I don’t know how long it would take him. Two: This is an isolated place and Allen would think similarly to you, and thus yes Apocryphos would think this is Allen. Allen getting help and moving around thanks to us. Who can get here no problem.”

“Fine! You win.” Tyki stomped his boots. Being a Noah meant the cold wasn’t a danger to him, but it wasn’t pleasant that’s for sure. He still felt the ice in the air and was really upset with himself over his idea to not bring a coat. 

“But can we please go back to the Ark sometimes just to stay warm? There’s no way he can travel from New York to here in a week.”

“Gah, we’ll just move. Let’s go to Easter Island. It’s just as remote.”

“Thank you Rhode!”

“This is our last time. It might as well be someplace we can relax.”

And relax they did, a lie-in-the-sun-and-not-do-anything type of thing. Rhode always kept Allen’s hand near her. Tyki attributed it to her fascination with the boy, and as for some reason it didn’t decay at all, didn’t mind seeing it lying next Rhode instead of wrapped and stuffed in her purse. He suspected it hadn’t started rotting because it was for the most part pure Innocence, having changed every cell in Allen’s arm to inhabit it. 

What was even weirder was how Rhode had interacted with it over the past two months. She would unwrap it, the wings had disappeared and it was solid black again, and stroke it. Tyke had joked once about her wishing it was Allen, but that wasn’t it at all. 

“Allen’s one of us and has Innocence. What if, by some chance, we could too? What’s the point of destroying it but to prevent it from being used against us? If we could understand it, use it, that’s better for us.”

Not that she had learned anything. Maybe it had to do with the fact they were Noah before anything else, but Tyki didn’t care. He liked destroying Innocence, seeing the look of hopelessness on the faces of the exorcists. It felt good, destroying something that bothered him so much. He didn’t understand where Rhode was coming from at all. Tyki figured it might have something to do with what had happened before he came around. 

“Rhode.”

“Hmm?” She was tracing the cross on the back of Allen’s hand. 

“How come the 14th didn’t kill you 35 years ago?”

She paused her fingers, staring at Crown Clown for a few seconds before a lewd smile over took her face as she turned to Tyki. “We were lovers. And for Neah, the first 14th ever, it was a true lasting emotion for him undiluted by numerous reincarnations. It might be a few rotations before he could even think of seriously harming me.”

“Is that why you like Allen?” Tyki asked, rolling onto his side to see her better. 

“No, I liked him before I knew he was one of us.”

“There’s just something about him that draws me in too,” Apocryphos said, stepping out from behind bushes on the shore they had been sun bathing in. “But I don’t see him here.”

Tyki jumped to his feet, but Rhode simply sat up and turned to face the white creature, legs crossed. Apocryphos was dripping water, and looked tired. Which was good. They wanted to keep it off of Allen’s tail enough to let the teen recover. 

“No,” Rhode answered. “But I have this.” She pulled Allen’s arm into her lap, stroked down it once, and then pressed her finger onto the back of the hand. The Innocence shattered, fine particles scattering around her and then falling to mingle with the sand. 

Apocryphos snarled. “How long have I been following you two?”

“Oh, a little more than two months.” Tyki offered. 

“And without his Innocence, has Allen Walker joined you?”

Both Noah just smiled, too wide and sharp to be human. 

Apocryphos stared at them, his own lips spread to reveal crocodile teeth. “I’m going to say no,” he finally said, “because if the 14th had taken control, you would show that off. Where is he?”

Rhode shrugged, her evil aura mellowing to that of a child’s again. “We haven’t seen him for almost as long as you.”

The Innocence snarled and then disappeared back into trees.

Tyki stared after him for awhile, till Rhode called his name. “Tyki, I couldn’t tell, did I really destroy Allen’s Innocence or is it going to return to him like it did when you destroyed it?”

He sighed. “I don’t know. When I destroyed it, it looked just like that.”

* * *

It felt good to be an exorcist again. 

One, it meant he was gaining ground against Neah in his mind, still human. Not having to fight two battles at the same time was such a relief. 

Two, like he had told Bak Chan before, Allen really did live to fight the akuma and save their souls. Maybe it had to do with the fact that he had been born with Innocence, or that he had been fighting them for so many of his formative years. Regardless, he felt strangely at peace destroying akuma.

“You’re getting better,” Johnny noted. 

Allen waited until he had landed on the roof securely before answering. Landing was still tricky, despite Tim’s (not rather helpful) flying lessons, and he had to focus to not feel the impact of landing jar up his legs. 

“I still hit you pretty good in the head when I activated though.”

Johnny laughed it off. “It’s my fault for not moving out of the way. I’m perfectly aware of how large your wingspan is.”

“Only because I’ve hit you so many times. I am sorry about all of them.”

“Don’t worry about it. You looked liked you handled turning better. And you did something new. You usually just fly by them and slice them with your wings. But today you actually shot something.” Johnny held out a hooded cloak for Allen to step into. 

“I think my sync rate is up a bit. And I kept thinking Crown Clown had a range attack, as do most other Innocences, so it made sense for this one too.” He wrapped the cloak around him tightly. 

There was a drawback to his new Innocence, which was that when activated it shredded normal shirts. The jacket Johnny had made him held up, but too well, restraining them and not allowing him to unfurl them. Which meant Allen was essentially shirtless all the time, you never knew when an akuma would show up, but wore outer garments that were easier to slip out of. 

And then there were people who called him an angel. White hair, white wings, fighting a demon, it was easy to see why. But he didn’t feel like one, not while hosting an inhuman monster himself and living on the run. Of which rumors of an avenging angel weren’t helping. The Order, or Apocryphos, was sure to hear of them and come investigate. And with white hair, he got lots of town residents asking if he was an angel or calling him Gabriel. He had tried dying it, but every time he activated his Innocence, it turned white again. 

Slowly, they climbed down from the roof into an alley. Allen pulled his hood up, not wanting to be recognized. Sometimes he entered a town by himself, killed the Akuma, and then met back up with Johnny on the road. But this place was bigger, almost a city, and Johnny said they needed to stock up on supplies. 

Ever since Johnny had joined him, life was a whole lot better. It might mostly have to do with the lack of Apocryphos (thanks to his lack of Crown Clown), but Allen also liked to attribute a huge part of that to Johnny’s presence. Johnny took care of him, found good places to sleep and always made sure he ate. It was never until he was full due to funds, but it was enough to keep him going. Tim, as if sensing their tight wallets, hadn’t eaten anything either of the two males offered him, but Allen had seen him eat the scraps from tables at cafes and restaurants they passed by. 

In order to keep their life style, worrying about Apocryphos but not in a pressing manner, Allen had taken to using the Ark. Quick transportation from one place to another meant the Innocence would have less of an opportunity to catch up to them, and Allen didn’t like the idea of Apocryphos and Johnny meeting. Plus, it’s not like he stayed and hid behind akuma and other exorcists anymore. 

So they would gate from one city to another, walk around the area a bit as if on a working vacation, and then go off to another location. Allen was actually quite fond of it; it really was just like traveling with a friend. No orders from the Order, no pressing matters to concern himself with, and just a free, bohemian way of living. 

Sometimes he thought he could do it forever. 

So did Neah. 

The musician had no desire to join the Noah family. Once he killed them all, and the Heart, he would love to just travel the world. He didn’t mind if Johnny tagged along either. 

That was the weird thing. Neah, the Musician, the 14th, the Noah of Destruction, ultimately wanted peace. And not just for this rendition of this war, all of it. He figured that if he destroyed both sides completely, years down the road, decades, centuries, no one would have their life ruined by the secret war. 

It was hard for Allen to not at least sympathize with that.

* * *

When Miranda Lotte came to report about her and Timothy’s most recent mission, she was paler and trembling more than usual. Koumi figured it meant something had happened in that small Italian town he sent her to, but nothing stood out that would cause such a reaction in her verbal or written report. It was only when she was finished, yet was still sitting on the couch with her hands on her knees did Koumi figure it was something unofficial.

“Miranda,” he said gently, “is there something else?”

She started sobbing, really bawling and the supervisor drew back in surprised at its suddenness. 

“Allen, Allen, he’s dead.” She whispered it, for walls had ears these days. “I saw him defeat an akuma in a town we passed through, but he was an angel. Complete with white wings. And he was smiling. I’m so sad he’s gone, but I’m so happy he’s happy.”

* * *

Allen gated them to Brazil. Neither he nor Johnny had ever seen a rainforest, and they figured they would rough it with local tribes for a little bit. But as soon as the moved from Germany to Brazil, Allen felt his left arm stump tingle. He rubbed at it with his right hand. 

“You okay Allen?” Johnny asked, always tuned to the exorcist’s moods and needs. He had gotten pretty good at it over the almost three full months they’d been together. 

“Yeah,” Allen gave his friend a smile and lowered his arm. “Let’s see if we can find some natives.”

They set off in no real direction, just walking and pointing out things that interested them. When they stopped for lunch on the edge of a small stream, Allen took to the air and practiced tight corners. It didn’t really work. After hitting five trees he quit and settled on a rock next to Johnny. 

“It’s too narrow,” Allen explained in response to Johnny’s raised eyebrow. “Plus, I think my wings are wider that then most of the tree gaps.” He activated them and Johnny looked. 

“You’re right. So how are you going to fight in a closed space?”

“I guess I’ll have to run to some open area.”

“Which rainforests don’t have.”

“We’ll figure something out.”

As they finished eating, it got darker to the point where lunch felt like dinner. Fog crept up from the stream, and Allen found it hard to make out the trees ten feet way. Something was bothering Timcampy too, he huddled next to Allen’s neck.

“Is this normal for a rainforest?” he asked after swallowing the last bite of his last sandwich.

“I have no idea,” Johnny answered. “But maybe if we move away from the water? And it’s probably a good idea to start looking for someplace to sleep if it gets dark this early.”

But moving away from the stream didn’t bring them out of the fog, and Allen’s stump continued to tingle. Actually, looking around he thought the fog had actually thickened around them. And something about it felt familiar. 

“Johnny.”

“Yeah, Allen?”

“Take twenty steps that way and tell me what you discover. I’ll stay here.” 

“You sure?”

“Yup, with this fog I won’t be able to see you, but I’ll still hear you.” He titled his head and smiled.

Johnny gave him an I-don’t-like-this look, but did as Allen asked anyway. The exorcist listened to his friend tramp through the forest and then stop. 

“This is weird,” Johnny said, just as Allen felt the tingling increase a bit. It didn’t hurt, in fact it was strangely warm, and at the thought a feel of being missed and welcomed home washed through him. 

“The fog,” Johnny continued, “it’s – “

“Just around me, right?” Allen was sure Johnny could he his smile. “That’s because it isn’t actually fog. It’s Crown Clown. Tyki and Rhode probably destroyed my Innocence again, and because we’ve been traveling so much it couldn’t find me until now.”

“Are you sure?”

“Positive.” As proof, Allen closed his eyes and called out to his original Innocence. Welcome back, Crown Clown. I missed you. And while the Innocence couldn’t respond in words or even true emotions, Allen understood the feeling was mutual. 

He stuck out his right hand and the fog condensed underneath it until he was holding the Sword of Exorcism in it. Allen brought the tip up; it was heavier than he remembered, he’d have to pick up the pace on his push-ups. Tim settled down on the tip, flying to Allen’s head as he changed the sword to his hand.

“Wow Allen, you were right.” Johnny jogged over. “How’d you know?”

Allen shrugged. “It was familiar to when Tyki destroyed it back in China. I’m just glad that I didn’t have to wait as long to reform it as last time.”

Johnny was staring at Allen’s left hand, and then switched his gaze to the tattoos on the white haired teen’s back. He had that scientist look on his face, the one where he was presented with a problem and trying to fix it. 

“You know, I think you’re the first to actually have two Innocences.”

“But Master-“

“Cross only had Judgment. Grave of Maria wasn’t really his, it was Maria’s, and he just controlled her. But you…” he trailed off and his face drained of color. “Both of yours are parasite types. How much are you going to eat now?!”


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Allen and Johnny work the street to get by, but things go pear-shaped when an enemy (or two) show up.

Allen reminded Johnny of a hummingbird. Those tiny little birds beat their wings so fast and had such a high metabolism that most of their day was occupied with finding food. And indeed, that’s what Allen was doing now. Johnny too, for Allen. Did that make Allen a parasitic hummingbird?

The truth of the matter was that Allen had always eaten a lot. But he usually limited himself to three meals a day while at the Order. Three giant meals, mind you, and snacks. Since they were on their own and traveling now however, Allen had cut back to two normal sized meals and one twice that size – usually dinner. And paying for that was always an issue.

Of course, that was when Allen just had wings. Now that he had Crown Clown as well, he was eating two double meals a day, and a third slightly larger than normal one. Seeing as their, okay really Allen’s means of making money because Johnny was only good at science and it was hard finding someone on the street saying they needed a chemist, was cheating at cards and street performing they needed to be in cities. Cities had more people to give money to a dancing clown and meant more bars so they would be harder to recognize. 

Cities were a necessity. But neither one of them liked them. The crowds meant more akuma and more akuma meant a greater likely hood of running into someone from the Order. There was also the issue with how accessible cities were. It was easier for Apocryphos to find them. And it just caused the rumors of an avenging angel to spread faster. 

Johnny had still to meet the self aware Innocence. At first, he was fascinated by the prospect. But then Tim showed him videos of his first attack, and Johnny couldn’t get the image of how sickly and skinny Allen had been when he found the teen out of his mind. If Apocryphos could do that to Allen, who was an exorcist who could hold his own for a bit against the Earl, he didn’t want to met it.

But Apocryphos wasn’t the only thing he was on the watch for. Sometimes, Allen would freeze, his eyes glassy and a brighter color. It was if they just caught the reflection of a candle, but Johnny knew that hint of gold was internal. Allen was still battling with the Fourteenth. 

Battling may have been the wrong word. Allen never seemed to struggle with the Noah, just shake off the brief periods of being frozen and smile. A smile that said nothing was wrong. Allen had said Neah talked to him, showed him things.

“He’s not trying to take over, per say,” Allen said over lunch one day. “Just persuade me to see his side and end the war.”

“But isn’t that what we want too? To see it over?”

“Yes, but to you the end is the defeat of the Earl. To Neah…it’s a little different.”

“And what did he show you this morning?”

“Mana.” Allen’s smile was so bittersweet Johnny almost choked on his water. “Neah was his brother, and so he has lots of memories of him.”

Family time, Neah was….being an uncle. It set Johnny on edge, and he kept waiting for The Fourteenth to decided Allen was placid enough and attack his mind. A healthy Allen would have a better chance, and so Johnny did what he could to keep his friend safe – he learned how to juggle, helped earned money, and made sure Allen ate properly. 

If he skipped a meal here and there, Allen didn’t have to know.

* * *

Buenos Aries had apparently been Mana’s favorite city, according to Neah. It hadn’t been the capital of Argentina then, political differences had caused it to succeed from the federation and it had been its own city-state. Neah had fond memories of the place, and so the next time Allen opened the Ark’s door they stepped from Frankfurt to the Latin city. 

It was immediately different from what he remembered. No, what Neah remembered. The Noah’s memories were so vivid Allen sometimes got mixed up between what was and what wasn’t his own experiences. Buenos Aries had bloomed, was now a multiethnic city, and the regional capital of radio, television, cinema, and theatre. Perhaps Mana had felt the city’s potential and that was why he fell in love with it. 

“This way,” Allen instructed, and made his way towards an inn Mana had liked to stay at. Johnny fell in behind him. But when he got to where the inn had been, Allen stopped. The area was all residencies now. “I don’t remember it being like this,” he mumbled to himself. 

The door to the house opened, and out stepped a women a few years older than Allen. Allen’s eye whirled to life and both his Innocences activated. He was having a hard time distinguishing between the two of them. Allen would think activate! and both would spring into being. Crown Clown had even changed shape to accommodate his wings; it no longer had a cowl and instead hung from two points in his shoulders with a drape long enough were the fabric only connected under his wing joints. 

Attacking resulted in a similar double action from both Innocences. With Crown Clown he performed Crown Edge, and with Gabriel (a name his wings had picked out themselves, by humming pleasantly whenever someone watching Allen fight had called out ‘It’s the Angel Gabriel here to save us!’) he sent forward sharp feathers from his wings in an attack called Truth’s Spear. 

It was very much an over kill for a new level one. It also took out the front door of the house, taking away so much support that the building crumpled forward. 

Johnny, from his position of lying on the ground where he quickly fell to prevent being hit in the head by Allen’s wings, again, let out a low whistle. Large amounts of destruction due to an inability to control his Innocences was another reason cities were a pain. 

Quickly Allen retracted his wings and claw. Johnny grabbed Allen’s black cloak, the clasp he had fixed to drop anytime his wings activated, and handed it to the exorcist. Allen quickly put it on and they ran to the far side of town with Timcampy leading the way. They didn’t have the cash to spare for a new house. 

They ran further than they needed too, simply for the enjoyment that they were running from a non-serious threat. It reminded Allen of freedom, of when he was running with Mana from crowds begging for more and not from Noah on their tail because he had betrayed them. Simple times. They meant so much.

Johnny stopped first, leaning against a side of a clock repair shop and gasping for air. Allen stopped in front of him, leaned over to put his hands on his thighs and took in lungfuls of air. He looked up at the scientist, who looked back at him, and they sank to the ground laughing. It was so good to be alive and with a friend. 

His arm left ached, so Allen rolled his shoulder back. He didn’t remember running into anything, but maybe it was just a hint that after usage of it he needed to eat. 

Johnny noticed the action. “I’ll go find us a cheap bed and food. We passed a busy corner one block over. Why don’t you set up over there?” He tossed the teen their bag of performance props, things they had scavenged and polished up. 

“No problem, Johnny,” Allen said, and made his way towards the corner.

* * *

Johnny paused at the edge of Allen’s crowd. It was amazing how well he fit in, now that he was wearing a cap that hid most of his hair. His skin had darkened more than any one that white should. With his accent most of his audience probably thought he was of double parentage; one Latin and one English. He wondered, not for the first time, about Allen’s birth parents. But Allen didn’t seem to do so. He had had Mana.

And increasingly Neah.

Allen was losing to the Fourteenth, his growing ease with conversing with the Noah and his physical changes were proof of it. But the scariest part was that Allen didn’t seem to be noticing. 

Johnny pushed closer, intent of joining Allen by either adding another act or walking around with a spare shirt in his hand to collect coins. The closer he got, the more he noticed that Allen seemed to be favoring his left arm. Which made no sense. Quickly, he took off his own shirt and the motion caught Allen’s eye. Johnny looked pointed at the shirt, a command to wrap up the show, and Allen complied. 

In Spanish, Allen asked for those who liked his show pay him for his time. Johnny couldn’t remember if Allen had always known that, or if the Fourteenth had. The scientist held out the shirt, gripping the sleeves in one hand and the bottom in another, and people dropped coins in as he walked in a circle around Allen’s performing space.

Once most of the people were gone, Johnny dumped the coins in their bag and Allen pulled him into the nearest alley. Timcampy was flitting around nervously. 

“We have to go,” the white haired teen hissed. “Apocryphos is here, or at least close by.” He was gripping his Innocence hand with his flesh one and Johnny noticed that the black hand was trembling. 

“Yeah, yeah, let’s just gather everything together.” Johnny bent down to fit Allen’s juggling sacks in the bag and set to deflating the ball he stood on to perform. 

“Johnny, you don’t understand. My arm only reacts when-“ Allen let out a muted sound of pain. Johnny turned to look at him. He had sunk against the wall, and small white feathers were sprouting along his arms. Tim had settled in Allen’s hair, it looked like he was huddling out of fear.

“Allen…your arm…”

“I know, this happens every time. I won’t be able to use Crown Clown very well, so hopefully Gabriel will be enough.” He hissed. “Johnny, he’s coming closer we have to move now!”

Johnny slung the bag over his shoulder and stuffed the ball in it partially deflated. The air would escape on it’s own, eventually.   
“Can’t you just call the Ark?”

“I’d rather not. It’s hard for me to concentrate on the song, Crown Clown really wants to join with Apocryphos.” The wings on Allen’s arms were larger now, reaching up and over his back to point west. They looked like a grotesque version of Gabriel. Actually, they had merged with Gabriel. Allen’s wings had activated without their usual furl. They were small, warped, and the feathers all pointed in an unnatural position to join with the mini wings coming from Crown Clown.

“Looks like Gabriel wants to join too, to some extent.”

Allen was panting now, sweat dripping down his face. He didn’t look like he could stand without help, but somehow he managed to half shuffle, half run down the alley. Johnny quickly caught up and forced Crown Clown around his shoulders. The wings felt prickly, like dull needles pressing on his skin, but this way Johnny could help Allen walk and try to control the arm tremors.

“I noticed,” Allen panted.

“Well, you said Apocryphos works for the Heart. We’ve always known there was some type of connection between it and all the other Innocence, why else would we spend so much time searching for it? It’s possible they all work for the Heart, share it’s goals to some extent. The question is why does the Heart want you gone?”

“Take a guess,” Allen said weakly, stumbling to keep up with Johnny’s fox trot. Johnny looked up into the exorcist’s face and his eyes flashed gold. Not a flicker like he had seen before, in just a part of his eye, but the entire iris changed to a feral yellow.

“I don’t need to. “

The alley ended, and they found themselves out on the street. They tried to sneak back into the shadows, but they had already been spotted. 

“It’s the Angel!” a voice to their left whispered. Before either of them could blink there was a mob around them, reaching out to touch Allen, asking for God’s blessing, and ultimately slowing them down. Timcampy bit a few hands, but it didn’t stop the rest of the crowd.

“Johnny,” Allen said in a whisper, not to hide their conversation from the crowd but because that type of breathy voice was all he could manage at the moment. The teen suddenly got heavier, as if he couldn’t stand on his own any longer. “He’s here, to your right.”

Johnny turned his head and caught the eye of the Cardinal. He stood out for two reasons. One was that he was not mobbing towards Allen, he was just standing there staring at him and his stillness gave him away. The second was the smile on his face. His lips had turned black and taunt, stretched over a too wide, blocky toothed smile that stifled Johnny’s soul just at the crowd around them was stifling the air he was breathing. 

The Cardinal morphed into Apocryphos, and most of the crowd didn’t even notice.

“My son, heal my son!”

“Angel, tell us God’s message!”

“His wings! So many!”

“Demon!” Johnny screamed, pointing towards Apocryphos. 

It sort of worked. The crowd cleared, scattering with screams and shouts of ‘save us Angel!’. They were free to move, but it wasn’t very fast. Apocryphos seemed to take his time stalking toward them. And he could, because Allen wasn’t going anywhere fast. 

Johnny looked down at Allen. He was gasping for air, his eyes closed tightly as if in pain.

“How’d you get away before?”

“I’d run…sooner...Tyki and Rhode… helped too.”

“They aren’t here now. We need to do something!” Johnny kept looking over his shoulder as they tried to move away from Apocryphos as quickly as possible. The crowd kept on getting in the way, and the needle feeling Allen’s Innocences were giving him had long ago stopped being dull points. 

“The Ark…but I can’t…concentrate.”

“What if I sing the song with you, would that help? I’ve heard you sing it enough by now.”

“Maybe.”

Softly, under his breath so Apocryphos couldn’t hear him, Johnny began singing. His voice was better suited for showers.

“And then the little boy falls asleep, among the ashes in the flames shining.”

Allen began taking deep breaths, trying to get the energy to sing. Apocryphos was in no hurry to get to them, confident in his eventual catch of the pair. Eventual being in roughly two minutes. 

“Thousands of dreams,” Johnny sang, his tenor trembling. But Allen’s low alto, an unusual high voice for male even with the exorcist’s age, joined on the last word. It was so strong it surprised Johnny, and when he looked at Allen’s scrunched up, pain filled face he saw stigmata bleeding into existence on the teen’s forehead. 

The Ark opened in front of them. Johnny stumbled into it with Allen and felt himself fall. Allen usually opened the gate from one location to another, so that in the span of a step or two they had moved from a sunny Greece to rainy Poland. Falling was new. 

Johnny twisted in the air, pulling Allen against his chest and situating himself to land first on his back. Over Allen’s shoulder he saw the gate ripple, as if something made to cross through it but pulled back. It closed immediately after that and Johnny was left staring at an unnatural bright blue sky. He had only seen that color inside of the Ark.

He pushed aside the desire to look below him to see if he would identify the sprawling town in the Ark. It won’t help matters to know what he would land on, and he didn’t want to run the risk of Allen landing first. 

Gabriel and Crown Clown were still in the after throws of Apocryphos’s presence, and Johnny could feel his shirt absorb wetness. Allen’s blood, most likely. The teen was still struggling to get his breath and on a whim Johnny started singing again, beginning with the start of the verse he had left off with. 

“Welling up, that beloved face  
Thousands of dreams  
Trickle back to the Earth

On the night when the silver eyes were trembling,  
The shining you was born.”

They crashed through the roof of a pavilion, and landed on pillows. Johnny didn’t know if they had always been there or if Allen had the presence of mind to have them appear. It barely helped, they had fallen too far and Johnny gasped in pain as his back collided with the hard floor. 

Johnny’s arms reflexively loosened and Allen rolled to the side. He was Noah gray, and the stigmata on his forehead had stopped bleeding but remained there in midnight black. His eyes though, thank God his eyes were still sliver. Trembling with pain and worry and battle.

Trembling silver eyes. 

Something connected in Johnny’s head. He had always wondered why it was only that one song that worked the Ark, but had never given the lyrics much meaning. The melody was what had always captured him. But….the little boy falls asleep, ashes in the flames, show this child what love is.

On the night when the silver eyes were trembling, the shining you was born.

What, or who was the ‘you’ being born?

Allen’s eyes turned to suns, blazing with yellow light. 

“Oh Allen,” Johnny whispered, “You’ve been singing your doom.” He felt a tear roll down the side of his cheek just before he passed out from pain.

* * *

Allen had always been confused by his ability to use the Ark. At first, it was because of why he even had the ability. And then it was about how the Ark was connected to Mana. There was also the mystery of how it worked. Allen was the only one who could create and dismiss doors, but the Order had quickly found out that once a door was open they could control the portal.

Gates became available only for a certain time on mission locations, because that was when members of the science division opened the door in the town leading to them from inside the Ark. It was also funny how Allen could feel that timing, as each opening and closing of a door caused his blood to reverse flow for just the fraction of a second. 

But what caught his attention the most was that he never sung to the Ark alone. There was always a second voice singing with him, too quietly to be heard but Allen could sense in his inner ear and mind a harmony.

He knew from the beginning it was the shadow in the mirror, the Fourteenth, the Musician. 

Neah though was barely there, easy to brush aside. Normally. Apocryphos had called to him so strongly, that Allen had dared not use the Ark when he first fled from the Order after visiting Mother. He didn’t want to take any risks. Traveling with Johnny had eliminated that, and Neah was back to being a soundless singing companion when they moved.

The Noah talked a lot during other times though. Of Mana, of the previous incarnations of the Noah, of his plans. He always brought up something after use of the Ark, and Allen had begun to look forward to the conversations. Johnny was great and all, but you could only hang out so long with a person before you wanted a small change of scenery. Neah gave that to him.

Whenever they did talk, Neah was just a voice in his head. Sometimes Neah wouldn’t talk, just share a memory, and in that case Allen saw everything from Neah’s point of view. And when Allen dreamed, he was amongst a ruined city or naked trees. But even then Neah was just a voice that seemed to echo from the sky and Allen’s own chest at the same time. 

This time…he knew Apocryphos got too close. He had ignored the warning signs of his arm, wanting to earn the money he and Johnny so desperately needed and refusing to acknowledge that Apocryphos had caught up to him, was near Johnny, after having eluded him for almost four months. 

Neah always reacted to the living Innocence, physically taking over Allen’s body and sinking into random memories that Allen was usually good at avoiding. But he hadn’t this time. It was the memory of Neah trying to kill the Earl. All the other Noah (aside Rhode) had been destroyed and so Neah had challenged the first Noah. It had been a great fight, with Neah keeping his own, until there seemed to be a snap in the Earl’s eyes and Neah found himself on the floor with a large sword hovering over his belly button. 

Allen pulled himself out of the memory, and found himself no longer with Johnny. He was sitting in a stone throne, chained. Neah was standing in front of him, thumbs hooked into his front pocket. 

It was exactly as it had been during the fight with Alma, and it set him on edge. 

“Neah, what’s going on?”

“You were too close to Apocryphos, with two misbehaving Innocences on top of that. It took a lot out of you.”

“That doesn’t explain things, why am I here?”

Neah gave a soft laugh and reached over to ruffle Allen’s hair. 

“Tell me, ‘Allen’,” the teen frowned at the obvious quotation marks around his name. “About the first time you saw Rhode.”

“Rhode? I met her soon after her Noah genes activated, playing in a dirty alleyway by stabbing a knife into the dead body of a dog. She was doing it for fun. I told her to stop, and when she asked why, I said it was because I knew how to have more fun. ”

“That’s right. And what about Road? Tell me the first time you saw her.”

Allen pursued his lips. While the name Neah had said sounded exactly the same, the second had a heavier weight of power to it. He knew, without seeing it spelled, that it was a different name. But was it a different person?

“I…remember her being really tall and slender. And she has this way of weaving back and forth so her body forms really distinct curves. She glows black.”

“Yes, yes. But when did you meet her?”

“During a fight. I was playing with her, in a room, and hurt her badly. She didn’t like that, and…changed. I hadn’t expected that to happen.”

Neah bent at the hip to look into Allen’s eyes. “Wrong. The first time you met Rhode was on a mission with Lenalee, remember her?. It was when you met Miranda. And you’ve never meat Road, or at least not her true self.”

“What are you talking about? I remember it!”

“No,” and Neah’s grin took on the creepy, mouth too wide smile that all Noah seemed to have. “Those are my memories. Tell me Allen, who is the Noah of Pity?”

“Javier Hortez.”

“Really? Because as I remember it, you only know Tyki, Adam, Rhode, Lulu Bell, and Jasdevi by name. And none of them are the Noah of Pity.”

Allen paled, because now that it was pointed out to him, he could tell Neah was right. 

“Face it, ‘Allen’,” Neah continued. “You can’t separate your memories from mine. You are more Noah that Tyki, who has never completely merged with Joido. We’re becoming one. But me?” Neah stood up to his full height again and threw his arms up as he took a step back. “I’m the original Fourteenth. All incarnations become a part of me. I’ll keep growing and growing, but you end here. With your body, I’ll stop the war.” The Noah continued to step backward, the darkness wrapping around his limbs and taking him away. 

“Wait!” Allen called out, and Neah stepped back into full view. “I…I want the war to end too. I’m tired of all this pain, of seeing friends get hurt and leaving. And I know part of why it all happens, like me being you and Kanda’s past, because this war never ends!” He screamed the words out, all pain and sorrow. “I just want to save people, be they souls in akuma, my friends, strangers, or those not yet born.”

“And your plan?” Neah asked, grinning. 

Allen frowned, bowing his head to look at the chain over his thighs. “Will use yours,” his head jerked up. “But I don’t want my friends to get hurt. And we won’t have to fully merge. Let me still be Allen.”

Neah walked around him. Allen followed the Noah as well as he could, until he disappeared behind the chair out of his view. Neah’s hot voice breathed in the ear on Allen’s other side. 

“Alright, but I’m telling you now, we’ve already started the process of merging and there’s no going back. You were worried about control before, but I’m going to tell you straight out that from this point on there’s no guarantee that you’ll have it. Actually, it’s a given that at times you’ll find yourself back here in your or my mind and I’ll be controlling your body. Nothing you can do about that, but I wonder how your friend Johnny will react?”

Allen snapped his head around. “Leave Johnny alone!” But Neah was already gone.

* * *

Rhode liked to play. A lot. But it didn’t always involve hurting people. Sometimes it was just doing things she had wished and dreamed about when she had been a human child.

Like flying. The stars had always managed to hold her attention, not for long of course, but for a long enough period of time where she felt a small bit of attraction to them and could name the constellations. 

She regularly stole Lero, and sometimes at night she would find an empty field and fly around on him like a witch on a broom. Lero didn’t actually mind, it was one of Rhode’s more pleasant activities after all. And sometimes, like tonight, Tyki would come too to escape the pressure at home. 

Rhode didn’t know how he got there. There had been no bright white light to signal the opening of a gate, but she had turned a corner in the air and noticed a figure standing on top of the closest hill. She landed next to Tyki.

“Hmm?” he said, interrupted from enjoying his cigarette. He followed her gaze and saw the figure too.

He was dark, a silhouette, and would have been unrecognizable except for how the moon and stars made his white hair glow a soft gray.

No one talked, they just stared at one another for a moment. Then Allen shifted on his feet, and there was something about the small movement that warmed Rhode’s blood. 

“Hello Tyki, Road.”

It wasn’t Allen. It was Neah. He pulled his hands out of a pocket, to show off the Innocence he had in it by holding it up in the air between his thumb and forefinger. 

“Finally joined us, Musician?”

But Neah didn’t answer, just turned around and walked back down the hill. She didn’t make to follow, and Tyki stood still as well.

“So,” he began around the cigarette in his mouth. “We have ourselves our missing brother.”

“Not quite,” Road answered from deep inside herself. “Neah has always been a wild card. He may look like he’s helping us, but he has his own agenda. We have more than the Order to worry about.”

* * *

When Johnny awoke, he was lying in a bed. An extremely comfortable bed, much better than he and Allen could afford. Or even his bed in the Order. 

There was the sound of fingernails tapping on glass, and Johnny turned to see someone sitting in a chair next to the bed. He had white hair, but ash gray skin and unblinking gold eyes.

“A-allen?” he ventured, hating the unsteadiness of his voice. 

“No.” The Noah said.

“Fourteenth?”

The answering grin was all the answer he needed.

“Is Allen, gone?”

“For now, but he’ll be back. And please, call me Neah. You’ll be seeing a lot more of me and Fourteenth is too long and formal. Even the Earl rarely used numbers.”

The Fourteenth, for Johnny refused to call him Neah, it was too familiar, too friendly, and that was how he had trapped Allen, held out what he had been tapping his fingers against. It was a piece of Innocence. 

“I just wanted to let you know that I like you Johnny. You’ve been real good to my host, and you’re a good person. I have no problem with you sticking around and doing what you’ve been doing. It’ll almost be as if nothing has changed. But I just wanted to make sure that you knew one thing.” 

The Fourteenth shook the Innocence. “Things have changed.” And he crushed the Innocence in his fist. Johnny watched the glitter like particles drift to the floor, and then turned to stare at the Noah. He was grinning.

Johnny swallowed. “I’ll keep that in mind.”

“Good, now get back to healing. You have deep bruises, and that broken leg of yours needs time.” Johnny looked at his leg, he hadn’t even noticed the feel of a cast on his skin, the Noah had captured his attention that fully. “Allen will feel even more guilty if you’re not a little bit healed when he’s back.”

And with that parting phrase, Johnny was left alone in the room. Which had to be on the Ark, considering the view outside the window. 

“Oh Allen, I’m sorry I couldn’t help you.”


	4. Chapter 4

"Miranda!" Lenalee called, seeing the older exorcist step through a different door into the Ark's main hallway. Miranda paused, and Timothy walked right into her. They were frequently paired together, as Timothy’s ability left his body unguarded and in need of defense. Miranda, being a defensive exorcist to begin with, was the obvious choice. While Claude was technically Timothy’s master, she tended to focus more on taking out akuma than protecting her charge. 

“Watch where you’re going, Time-Lady.” Timothy snapped. 

“Oh,s-sorry.” Miranda stammered, hugging Time Record close to her chest. “Hello Lenalee,” she said, walking towards the teen with a wave. 

Timothy had turned at the sound of Lenalee’s name and his eyes got big at the sight of her. Not even a teen, and he had such a liking for boobs he would grow up to be a pervert. Though he was toeing that line now. Thank God he and Cross had never met. 

Or would ever have the chance. 

And of course, thinking about Cross had her thinking about Allen, and her mood slipped. 

Not enough of course, for her to not sidestep as Timothy raced towards her in an effort to cop a feel. She and Miranda watched him go by and crash head first into the wall, knocking himself out. 

The finder he had been traveling with sighed and picked up the boy, heading toward the door that led to HQ. Lenalee’s finder caught up with him, leaving the two female exorcists to walk beside each other behind them.

“How was Italy?” Lenalee asked. 

“Oh, it was nice. Very sunny and warm, it was a nice change. And you, how was Kenya?”

“Too warm,” Lenalee said, flipping her hair over her shoulder. “These uniforms don’t breathe very well.”

“No.” Miranda agreed, just before they stepped through the door that led home. 

As soon as they did, the door closed behind them. This home door never closed, allowing scientists to have free reign between the Ark and HQ to study the Ark and control doors. 

“Oh, no! I broke it!” Miranda feel to her knees, sobbing. 

Lenalee crouched near her, ”I’m sure you didn’t, but we have to move, we’re blocking the way for the scientists.”

“Oh! I knew I was such a failure.”

“No, you’re not,” Lenalee said, helping the older woman down the stairs and out of the gate room. She urged Miranda to get something to eat from the cafeteria, and then went back in to stand next to Kanda in the shadows on the west wall. 

“Were you leaving for a mission?” She asked.

“Che.” His head dipped just a hair, and she took it as a yes. 

“The Ark’s never acted up before.”

Kanda raised an eyebrow at her. “It almost destroyed itself before.”

“But that was Rhode’s doing. And Allen wouldn’t do that to the Ark, he knows we use it. And, unlike you, he doesn’t hate the Order as a whole. He wouldn’t do something like this.”

Kanda was silent, and Lenalee continued. “Miranda said something about Allen being dead, an angel with wings. I didn’t want to believe her, and figured maybe she just saw something that confused her. But if the Ark is shutting down…”

“The bean sprout is not dead.” Kanda said, voice even and steady like he was reciting something factual like his times tables. 

Lenalee smiled softly. Kanda didn’t want to believe it either. She scooted closer to him, just half an inch, and turned her attention to the scientists. It seemed the most pressing concern was that not everyone had been off of the Ark when the door closed, there were three scientists trapped on the other side in the white town. 

The white glow of the Ark came back, but the gate was horizontal as opposed to its usual vertical position. Out dropped the three scientists, unharmed except for bruises acquired from falling. 

“See? He’s alive.” Kanda pushed off the wall and made to leave, but Lenalee grabbed his wrist and pulled him into the closest corner. 

“For how long? He looked awful when we saw him months ago. Do you think Johnny found him yet?”

“If he hasn’t, than I will.”

* * *

Johnny wasn’t one for lying, but as soon as he saw Lavi he knew he would have to. The redhead was sitting at a beach ice cream café in Belgium, and Johnny was trying to enjoy the seaside. The only problem was it was cold enough for a sweater and he couldn’t stop thinking about Allen. 

Or was it the fourteenth?

The Noah said he had things to do, and so as to not have Johnny get in the way gated them to a town close enough were the Musician could walk to his actual destination and left the scientist alone with instructions to ‘enjoy the sights’. 

There weren’t many sights, aside from the beach and the local retired lighthouse. And he didn’t have the money to go sand surfing. Not that his broken leg would have allowed that and crutching through sand was difficult, so he settled for just laying on the beach, and when he sat up to toss away a shell digging into his back he caught a flash of red hair at the closest café and determined it was Lavi. 

He should have tried to leave all ninja like, but Lavi was trained to spot them. The bookman junior had casually looked in his direction when Johnny moved and when he recognized Johnny stood up and helped the scientist into the seat across from him. 

“Johnny! What are you doing here?”

“I could ask the same of you, you’ve been missing from the Order for half a year now.” Well, so too had Johnny and it was entirely plausible that Lavi had gone back in that time period, but as he wasn’t wearing an exorcist uniform Johnny doubted that. 

“Eh, it’s a boring story.”

“I bet mine is more so. Just work, more work, and then I finally got a vacation.”

Lavi laughed. “I didn’t think the Order gave out vacations. But if you broke your leg working, I guess you’re entitled to it.”

“Well, Komui felt pretty bad after he scared me and I fell of a ladder.” 

Johnny didn’t know if Lavi saw through his lie or not, but the teen didn’t mention it and so Johnny acted as if Lavi believed his lie.

“So, you? What bookman adventures have you been up too?”

Lavi frowned, stirring the spoon in his lemonade. It was obvious he didn’t want to talk about it, so Johnny took a different direction. “Have you heard anything about Allen?”

“Why, did something happen to the sprout?”

Johnny shot him a look, not sure if he hadn’t actually heard or was just playing him.

“He left the Order, no one’s seen him for months.”

“No one?”

“No one.” Johnny shook his head, and suspected that this piece of information wasn’t that new to the bookman junior. “I hope he’s doing okay.”

Lavi tensed, looked around, and then relaxed a little. “We, Bookman and I, spent some time with the Noah. Apparently Panda hung out a bunch with the old crew,” the red head shifted uneasily in his chair. He rubbed his hand on his neck. Johnny noticed a new scar, and wondered how willingly Lavi spent time with the Noah. “Apparently the Earl sent out an order that the other Noah are supposed to do everything they can to protect the Fourteenth. Sheryl was pissed, apparently Rhode disappeared like she did when we fought on the Ark protecting Allen from something. Did you know he was attacked at the Order?”

“Really?! Oh no! Maybe that’s why he took off. Though the Order believes Allen attacked his guards, and then fled with the Noah. I never really believed that though.” Really, his acting skills were not very good, but Lavi thankfully ignored them.

“The Order’s never had all the information. I hope Allen’s doing okay though.”

“I’m sure he is, Allen is tough.” Johnny said, smiling. Lavi returned it with one of his own. 

“Anyway, Sheryl demanded to know something about what had happened between Neah and Rhode in the past reincarnation. Apparently they were lovers, you believe that? No wonder Rhode likes Allen so much.”

“Huh,” Johnny grunted, but he had already suspected that much. He had gotten in the habit of asking Allen the memories his Noah was showing him, and when ever the exorcist had answered ‘Rhode’ it had been with a stutter and a blush. 

They sat in silence for a bit, staring at the ocean. “How come you haven’t come back to the Order, Lavi?”

The red head closed his eyes, as if the lids suddenly weighed a pound each. “Panda says there isn’t anything new to record there, that it’ll be the same type of fights with the same types of results.”

“I don’t know, Kanda came back. That was pretty interesting.”

“He did?” Lavi turned his head sharply to stare at Johnny, who nodded. The red head seemed relieved and happy at the news. “That's good to hear,” he said softly. And then louder, “That is interesting. But not enough for Gramps. He…wants to stay with the Noah. Says they’re the ones going to be making the next move and have the upper hand. They’re more interesting than the Order, their actions more important to write down. But not as much as Allen. I think he secretly hopes Allen will turn up amongst the Noah, either to fight them or join them, so he can record that. I think it would be to fight them, because there’s no way the bean sprout is going to give up to the Fourteenth.”

Johnny didn’t say anything, just fingered the tablecloth. 

Lavi pressed. “Because we know he’s too stubborn to give into the Noah.”

“Of course,” Johnny said, forcing his head up and smiling. “It’s just sad to think of him fighting all alone.” If any of his lies today were to be believed, let it be this one, he thought. 

“Yeah. I’ve been looking for him. Not a lot, just when I have the free time and can explore the areas near where Gramps and I are. I haven’t had any luck.”

“Well, you never know, today might be your lucky day.”

Lavi narrowed his eyes at Johnny, as if trying to figure out something from just the scientist’s tone of voice, but his gaze was interrupted by the chiming of a clock. 

“Oh! I gotta go!” The red head jumped to his feet and started fishing in his pockets for money. “The old Panda said to meet him at six tonight, but that was in the next town over, I came here to see if I could find Allen, and the train leaves soon so I have to catch it. It was good seeing you though, take care, okay Johnny?”

“Will do. You too Lavi.”

“Of course.”

Lavi placed money on the table and ran to an empty spot on the beach. From his side he pulled out his hammer innocence and extended it to ride it to the train station. It was nice to see Lavi still had something to tie him to his time as an exorcist. 

Johnny stood up to leave too, he hadn’t actually ordered anything, and saw that Lavi had left a small pile of gold coins on the table. It was more than enough for the bill, and Johnny felt himself considering taking the extra. Allen’s next day of food could be paid with all that, once Allen got his body back of course. Johnny had made a few coins performing, but this was a nice blessing. 

He took it, knowing Lavi had seen through most of his lies. But it didn’t make him feel better for telling them to a friend.

* * *

Neah knew he was in the right place when Allen’s eye picked up the akuma. It was interesting how it’s range was larger than his telepathic one, not by much, but enough to be interesting. He could use Allen’s eye, it being a curse by an akuma, but for the most part it was annoying. He didn’t need it to detect akuma within a certain distance and the world of black and white played with his head. He had no idea how his host did it. The good thing was that unlike Allen, Neah could turn it off. 

What he couldn’t do was use Gabriel or Crown Clown at all. Being Innocence, they weren’t self aware, but they weren’t mindless tools either. They had their own sort of presence, and were very aware when it was a Noah calling on their aid. In those situations, they didn’t activate.

Neah had tried it once, just to try it, and had been met with pain where the Innocence connected with Allen’s body. Even after he had withdrawn his idea to use them, his arm and back burned with deliberating pain for what felt like an hour. He got the message. The Innocence would tolerate his presence, but only because he was in Allen’s body and Allen would need to use Crown Clown and Gabriel when he was in control. It was amusing, recognizing that the Innocence had a loyalty to and concern for his nephew strong enough to deal with being so close to Neah for the times when Allen would be in control.

It might have almost made him respect it too, but he couldn’t afford to feel that way towards something he was planning to destroy. 

He had thought that Crown Clown would at least had recognized him a little bit, but maybe that was too far fetched an idea. Neah had implanted his memories and a bit of his soul into a cross necklace, and then given it to a young woman he had bedded. The cross had been on a string long enough so that when the woman wore it the metal would rest over her growing child. Neah didn’t know what had happened, Allen was too young to be that child, but that didn’t matter too much. He had a host and that’s what mattered. 

When the Innocence had attached itself to the necklace, and the Innocence to Allen, he had no idea, but again, that didn’t concern Neah. It was just an amusement to see his old necklace embedded in the left hand he had control of. 

At least Timcampy still knew him, though the golem seemed to be purposely not getting too close to him. It hurt, a little, to think his creation now had stronger fondness for Allen. But perhaps that was better. 

He called the akuma in the area to him, meeting up on the roof of a farmhouse just outside the town. They came in their true guises, not wearing human flesh, and he reveled in the power and control he had over them simply for being a Noah. 

But that power paled compared to what he would really do.

Neah opened his mouth and sang. Before he had become the 14th, he had been a tinker travelling in the Andalucía region of Spain. Singing had been a past time he did to entertain himself and his team of horses as he made his yearly loop. But once he had been forced to become a Noah, singing and music became his strong suit. Where he used to just be a good hobbyist, he was now fit to sing for a royal court. 

The power of Dark Matter had gifted him with emotion. Be it playing an instrument or singing he had the ability to embed songs with such feeling that he could force those to feel it themselves. He could make people cry or laugh. 

But those were the easy emotions. He had made people fall in love, inspired enough guilt to have a rich man give up his riches, made a maid so full of angst she hung herself. 

That’s what he did to the akuma. He sang a wordless song, for words didn’t matter. He could sing a church hymn and get the same result. What mattered was the feelings he put into them. Neah filled the notes with the longing for release, for the anger of trappings. As one, the four akuma around him self destructed, and Neah smiled at the power, the knowledge that he had done that. 

It was power he would need to end the war. 

The akuma out of the way, the Innocence was all his. It had nestled itself into the sign above a jeweler’s shop, and Neah took watch at a small bakery across the street and down a few storefronts. 

The mass disappearance of akuma was sure to get the Earl’s attention, and at this point in the war he would send a Noah to check it out. He or she would arrive quickly, on the chance that the attack meant an exorcist and the loss of Innocence to the Black Order. A quick response meant an opportunity to get and destroy the Innocence. 

It also meant a shorter wait.

He, nor Allen, hadn’t meet all the current reincarnations of the Noah, but there was a familiar pull towards a well built man with a bowl cut walking towards the jewelry shop. The closer the man got, the stronger the pull, for both of them. The other Noah even bypassed the Innocence to stand outside of the window Neah was sitting beside in the bakery. 

Neah smiled, the too wide grin only capable to those not human. 

The other Noah entered the shop and walked to Neah’s table. There wasn’t a second chair, so he just crossed his arms and gloomed over Neah. Or tried to, it didn’t really affect him. 

“I’m pretty sure, simply by elimination, you know who I am brother. Won’t you make things even and tell me your name?”

“Stephen La’Forie.”

“Ah, you’re not merged. Noah of…?”

Stephen flicked his tongue around his mouth. It was pointier than normal, and Neah caught a flash of eyes. 

“Corrosion,” Stephen said, though Neah figured that out himself at the sight of the parasites. 

“Fidora.” Neah smiled, “You obviously don’t personally recognize me Stephen, and that makes things easier for me.”

“Don’t get feisty. The Earl wants to see you.”

“I bet he does. But first, would you listen to a song I’ve been working on? I want to sing it for dear Adam but would love to run it by someone first.”

* * *

When Allen woke up, he found himself on the Ark, in mid step, writing in a notebook. It was too sudden, against his mind’s assurances that he was on his side sleeping. He crashed to the cobblestone street. 

“Ow,” he grumbled from the ground, rubbing his right shoulder as he sat up as it had collided with a loose stone. Timcampy fluttered in front of his face worriedly, and Allen smiled at him. “Hello, Timcampy.”

There was a chuckle from beside his ear, but no breath of air to go along with it. _Good morning, nephew._

Morning? Allen looked up, to no avail. The Ark’s sky never changed. But his mind felt so rested, it felt like he had spent the last 12 hours sleeping, no way it could be morning. It was strange though, his body didn’t feel nearly as rested. 

_That’s because I’ve been using it, as I said._

Allen’s eyes rested on the small notebook. The word ‘Innocence’ was written along the top of the page and underlined. Underneath were tally marks, forty-one of them. 

“What’s this?”

_The permanent ending of the war requires all of its pieces to be destroyed, remember? That includes Innocence and Noah._

Allen flipped the page to find a list of Noah, the names hauntedly familiar in the back of his head in the way he had come to associate with Neah’s memories, not his. Two of the names had been crossed out. 

Not wanting to think about that, Allen flipped back to the first page. “I didn’t realize you had destroyed so much Innocence.”

_There were only one hundred and nine pieces in the beginning. In the long period that this war has been going on, well not so long as it only shed its dormancy one hundred years ago, the Noah have destroyed forty-one pieces of Innocence while the Order has collected fifty seven. Of course, of the eleven left one of them is Apocryphos and one is the Heart._

“You’re really doing this, ending the war.”

 _We’re doing this._

It felt like both a betrayal and a revolution, being part of such thing. He was essentially hunting and destroying the goal of his friends, and yet freeing them from future control and strife at the same time. He felt unbalanced. 

“You did some things already, haven’t you?”

 _Destroyed two Innocences, and a brother._

“And Johnny?”

As if on cue, the scientist hobbled through the intersection in front of him, leg in a cast. “You broke his leg!?”

Johnny started at Allen’s yell, looking at him on confusion but then crutching forward. 

_No. We fell into the Ark running from Apocryphos. Johnny got hurt then._

Johnny had a guarded expression on his face, one that Allen had never seen on the other male before and the teen found himself shrinking from it as if accused. 

“Johnny?”

The other male’s expression softened, and before he knew it Allen’s arms were filled with the curly haired wonder that was his friend. “You’re back!”

“Of course, I said I wasn’t going to let Neah take over without a fight. Didn’t you believe me?”

“I thought you lost,” Johnny whispered and Allen felt his heart clench.

“Did he do anything to you?” he repeated.

“Not really. I mean, he actually healed me after that fall. But he’s a little scary.”

Allen didn’t think his uncle was that scary. Well, okay, he was frightened when he woke up chained to a chair, so maybe he could see Johnny’s point. “Sorry.”

“It’s okay, it’s not your fault. It was _his_.”

Allen felt like he should defend Neah somehow, but held his tongue. Johnny obviously wouldn’t understand it. But his friend deserved to know what had happened in his mind.

“You’ll be seeing him again,” Allen said, pulling away from the hug. “I…he…he’s allowing me to still have control over my body. It can’t be helped, we’re merging. You knew it was coming, and I promised myself to stop it, but I can’t. It’s going to happen. Should have already happened, and the only reason it hasn’t is because Neah has been kind enough to let me stay.”

“Allen, he’s destroying Innocence!”

“Yes, I know.”

“Don’t you care?!”

“It’s for a good cause.”

“It’ll cost us the war!” Johnny’s voice was loud and shrill, quite a contrast to Allen’s own softspoken words. Allen closed his eyes, pained at being at odds with his friend.

“Johnny, if there is no Innocence, what would we be fighting over?”

“Earth! The Noah would win if we couldn’t fight back.”

“The Noah only exist to serve the Earl, as his bodyguards. If he didn’t need them, they would never regenerate.”

“You, he, both of you…are going to destroy both sides?”

“Well, we’ll try.”

“I still don’t like him.”

“Well, he likes you.” Allen got to his feet, collected the fallen crutches, and then offered a hand to Johnny who took it. “He’s…used to traveling with someone else, and says you did a great job of taking care of me. Which you did. Do. I really do appreciate it Johnny, you’re a great friend to have followed me. I can’t tell you how much it means to me.”

“Oh Allen.” Johnny was sobbing, happy tears though, and Allen felt a few gather in his own eyes. 

“Now, I feel like as if Neah hasn’t eaten the entire time he’s been in control, I’m starving.”

“You know, I haven’t seen him eat at all. I wonder if Noah even have to. I mean, if they can’t die from a blow to the head I doubt starvation will kill them either.”

“Judging from the way my stomach feels that’s probably right. I’d ask Neah, but he’s sleeping at moment.”

Johnny scoffed, but didn’t say anything. “Come on, I’ll make you something. The Ark is always well stocked, don’t know why we didn’t think to look earlier or maybe you did and didn’t find anything. I mean, now that…the Fourteenth is awake I think it behaves differently. Anyway, I’ve recently had lots of free time on my hands – the Fourteenth did things by himself – so I’ve been messing around with recipes.”

“I’m sure they’re great, but I don’t know if I can handle waiting.”

“There’s stuff you can eat till I’m done. We have a ton of bananas.”

* * *

Road was worried. When the entire family had gathered after Wisley’s reincarnation, the Earl had fallen back into old habits. Though for most of the others at the gathering it was a new, startling thing to see.

The Earl was old, very old. It got to him, caused vicious mood swings that always leaned towards the violent side. The Earl would go on a rampage creating Akuma, collecting them, and then attacking a town. His face would wrinkle too, and blood vessels would strain through out his body, pain forcing him to the ground. 

Road knew what it was, Wisley too. The Earl was immortal, had lived for 7,000 years, but no one lived that long without deteriorating. His form and health was kept by magic, mostly. 

When Neah had been around, things were different. He told the Earl he could help him, and did. He would sing, or hum, and use all his skills as the Musician to soothe their leader. 

That’s why Road thought the Earl was so keen to get him back, because life without him was painful and it was getting harder and harder for his magic to assist him like it had in the past. She, and the Earl as well, had hoped that when the Fourteenth was reincarnated that he would not merge with his host, that the human he emerged in would just accept his role of being a Noah and join the family. But it wasn’t just the genes that had awakened, it was Neah himself, and in an exorcist to boot.

God was against them. And despite Adam’s instance that they were working _for_ God, Road wasn’t too sure. She hated the fact that her memories from the beginning of the war were fuzzy. 

Neah was back, she and Tyki had seen him last night, and she was worried. Neah had killed almost all her family thirty-five years ago, and seemed to be doing it under the idea that it was helping the Millennium Earl. She didn’t understand that, how did helping him involve killing him?

* * *

Johnny wasn’t quite sure how much to make. He usually used the amounts listed in the cook books, which was more than he could eat and the leftover were in the icebox. But Allen could eat a lot. Should he double the recipe, triple? He tripled it, just in case, and was happy to see Allen eat most of it. It was more than he’d been able to get at any point of time during their travels, even Timcampy seemed to be feasting. Though he had been feeding the gold golem the past week already. 

“So that’s that plan, destroy all the Noah and Innocence?”

“Essentially.” It always amazed him, how Allen could talk with his mouth full and still be completely understandable and not spit food everywhere. 

“That means fighting our friends.”

Allen put his fork down. “I know. I don’t want to hurt them, and I figure, if I can take out the Noah first, and they have no reason to fight, I can…convince them to just hand it over.”

“Kanda’s really attached to Mugen. I don’t know if he’ll do that.”

Allen gave a small chuckle. “Probably not. And there’s all that Innocence that Hevlaska has. I’ll probably have to break into the Order.”

Johnny sighed, not liking where all this was going, but willing to stand by his friend. “We’ll have to break in. I don’t want you going without me.”

Allen looked down at Johnny’s leg.

“Right, so I may have to wait awhile.”

“That’s okay, I can go after the Noah instead.”

Johnny frowned, not liking the idea of Allen going off alone, but knowing it would be weeks yet before his leg was completely healed. The war couldn’t be put off for that long, especially if he wanted it to end before the merge between Allen and Neah was complete. Allen still looked like he had in Buenos Aries, with dark skin. And his hair was wavy, compared to it’s typical bone straight looks. He also wondered if Allen had looked in a mirror since he ‘woke up’ as it were. His scar had changed, Johnny didn’t think scars could. But it was a curse mark, so maybe that meant it was different and could explain why Allen now had black wavy tendrils on the left side of his face. 

“You’ll be careful, right?” 

“Of course,” Allen said, but then his eyes turned gold and Johnny just knew it was the Fourteenth talking. “It’s not like I can die anyway though.”

It was weird, staring at the Fourteenth while he still looked mostly like Allen. Johnny had simply thought that anytime the Noah took control, Allen’s body would turn gray and spout stigmata. If he didn’t physically change that much, it would be hard to tell the two apart. Maybe he should just call them Neallen? Or Alleneah, since he liked Allen better?

“Doesn’t mean you should take risks,” he told the Noah. Nope, neither name would work, it was too much of a reminder that he was slowly losing Allen.

The Fourteenth chuckled and then faded way.

* * *

Allen didn’t quite understand it, but apparently Noah were drawn together by family ties. If they were near each other, they would know it. Neah’s plan had been to gate into large cities and detect any kin. They started with Venice, and didn’t have to go anywhere else. 

It had to have been dumb luck, to find Wisley on a rooftop seven buildings over. The other Noah seemed surprised to see him too, and Allen used that to his advantage. He activated both Innocences and flew into the air, Tim taking off to the sky to get out of the way. 

“Neat trick, Neah!” Wisley called up, “Inhabiting an exorcist and gaining their ability to use Innocence.”

Allen didn’t bother correcting him. Let the fifth Noah think what he will, he wouldn't be around much longer anyway. He launched Truth’s Spear at Wisley, who dodged with a roll. 

“I heard you visited your son the other night, how was that?”

Neah, who had for the most part been passive in Allen’s mind, resting the teen assumed, stirred. Allen could feel his consciousness creep forward, and it’s confused nature. 

“What are you talking about, Wisley?” he asked for his uncle’s benefit. 

“Was it too dark for you to get a good look at his face? But surely Neah, you can use your host’s memories of Tyki Mikk.”

All of a sudden, Neah snapped to attention. Allen couldn’t tell what he was thinking exactly, but he could tell Neah was surprised at Wisley’s knowledge, and it was some type of bomb shell that he had kept from Allen. Not that he was trying to hide anything now, Neah had just hadn’t seen the point of reveling it. 

“What are you getting at?” Allen shouted down at the other Noah.

“That Tyki Mikk is your son, the one who you originally thought would be your host. But I don’t know, there are advantages to the way things turned out for you I think.”

“Tyki’s my cousin?” Allen blurted out in surprise, dropping in altitude as he forgot to flap. 

Wisley looked hard up at him. “You’re not Neah, are you?”

Allen felt himself pushed back, but his view of the world didn’t change and he realized that Neah had pushed his mind back and took control of body. “I am now,” his mouth said. 

At that moment, Gabriel gave out and pain lashed across his back. It was followed by Crown Clown turning back into his normal arm and his shoulder feeling as if someone had spilled acid on it. Allen was only getting the pained filtered through Neah’s consciousness, and if it hurt this bad he didn’t want to be in Neah’s position. They crashed to the roof. 

“Huh,” Wisley said, bending down to look at them. “Guess you can’t use the Innocence when you’re in control, can you Neah?”

Allen found himself thrust forward in his mind. The pain was intense, but both Innocences seemed to realize right away that he was now in control instead of Neah. Gabriel unfurled from his back, and Allen used a claw to strike Wisley right in the center of his eye. 

The other Noah screamed, backing up with his hand clutching his face. Allen took the initiative to continue to attack, not giving Wisley anytime to recover. He had read Kanda’s report from when he faced Skin Boric, for Noah to die you had to push their regenerative abilities to the limit, and than pass it. It was like they were restricted as to how many lives they had. 

_In a sense, yes._ Even incorporeal, Neah’s voice sounded like he was in pain. _Our bodies can heal forever and from anything, but too much major healing from death wounds in a short period of time is a blow to the mind, even that of a Noah. Eventually they’ll want death to stop the pain, and it’ll come. It’s so much easier to just sing them to suicide._

Allen paused to catch a breath and reset for his next set of attacks, watching Wisley’s body heal among the wreckage of the building they had started their fight on. The Noah was already standing before Allen was ready. 

“Hiban!” A familiar voice shouted and the building went up in flames. 

Allen flew backwards on the hot air, looking around the rooftops for his ally. There he was, on the other side of the fire snake. Lavi. He wasn’t wearing an exorcist uniform, but Allen had suspected that. He hadn’t received a letter from him after all. But it was heartening to see he still had his Innocence and that friendly grin. 

“You look like you could use some help,” the red head shouted across the new hole in the block. 

Before Allen could respond, a large eye opened underneath Lavi and the older teen sank to his knees into a position similar to the one he had taken when they had fought Rhode in the Ark. 

“Lavi!” Allen shouted, but he didn’t get answer. With a snarl, he dove into the wreckage and physically tackled Wisley. 

_He doesn’t have any attacks other than forcing himself into other’s memories._

Allen was glad, it made it easier to concentrate on stretching out the claws of Crown Clown and stabbing them into the Noah when he didn’t have to worry about a counter attack. Wisley gagged, blood spewing out of his mouth, and by the sound from above Allen knew Lavi was free. It didn’t stop his attack; he cut across Wisley with a wing and then jumped back and sent razor feathers and sharp crowns into the Noah. 

_A Cross Grave should kill him._

Allen paused, hesitated, because to be honest he didn’t want to kill Wisley, just destroy his Noah, and the idea that Neah has no qualms about killing his reincarnated brother disturbed him. What would such a harsh individual do him? Allen couldn’t help but recall Neah’s predatory nature when they had last talked face to face. 

_It’s not like he was really my brother. I was only a Noah for five years, and that was only because my twin had the genes but Bondomu had already awakened. I’m the surprise step-son you could say, and I have no feelings for the rest of the Noah. If Wisley died, my genes wouldn’t even cry._

Allen cried instead, because he could hear the longing to belong in Neah’s voice, could pick out the lie, and wondered if no one used to say ‘welcome home’ to him every time he returned from a mission for the Earl. They were quite a pair, as uncle and nephew. 

Wisley took advantage of the break in attacks, opening up an eye beneath Allen. He expected to be taken to his worst memory, but he instead found himself face to face with Neah who looked just as surprised. 

“Maybe we are so merged that he can’t tell who’s mind to explore?” They said it at the same time, in the same voice, and the idea of soon slipping away scared Allen. 

He didn’t have time to dwell on it, for reality snapped back into focus. There was Lavi, a huge grin on his face, and Wisley holding on to a broken nose. Allen pulled his arm off, transforming it into the Sword of Exorcism, and cut a cross through Wisley. The Noah choked, than fell to his knees.

Allen and Lavi stood ready, half expecting him to come back like Tyki had, but nothing happened. Wish a sigh, Allen deactivated Crown Clown and Gabriel. It’s true, neither he nor Neah felt any great sadness. And then he felt Neah push him out of control.

* * *

To say he was surprised when Allen picked up a rock and started bashing it into Wisley’s skull would have been an understatement. In fact, Lavi was so stunned he just stared for a good three hits before he leaped into action. 

“Allen! Stop it!” He tried to drag his friend backwards, but Allen shook him off and smashed the rock into Wisley’s skull again. 

“Fuck it Allen, he’s already dead!”

Allen stopped, looked at the body beneath him, and saw that the Noah was indeed no long living. “Good, I couldn’t have him living.”

“Jeezes Allen, what’s happened - ” Lavi pulled on Allen’s arm in an effort to turn him so they could speak face to face, and noticed the feral gold eyes where there should have been silver ones. 

“Neah. Allen lost than, I take it.”

“Not quite. We share the body, but at the moment he’s hiding. I don’t think he enjoyed seeing me kill Wisley.”

“I bet not.”

They stood, staring at each other, until the sounds of distress from the town at the damage they had done reached their ears. Timcampy showed up too, flying over to say hello to Lavi before going to fly lazy circles around Neah’s head. 

“You want to talk, I take it?” Neah said, and Lavi nodded. 

Neah started humming, and a gate appeared behind him. Neah stepped backwards through it, and Lavi followed. They ended up on a street of the Ark he didn’t know.

“So, Bookman, what’s your question?”

“Why did you kill Wisley?” It wasn’t actually the one he wanted to ask. Despite knowing he shouldn’t care, he really wanted to ask about Allen’s well-being, Johnny’s too. But as a Bookman, he knew what he should ask first. 

“I can’t have him coming back now, can it? The more traumatic the death, the longer it takes for the Noah genes to awaken in someone else.”

“You’re still planning on killing the Earl then?”

“Of course, but I’m also going to destroy all the Innocence. You want to hand yours over, or should we fight?” Neah grinned.

Lavi frowned, not liking the idea of parting from his hammer. He knew he would have to give it up eventually, but knowing he had been chosen to weld it, that if he hadn’t been a Bookman he would have still ended up at the Order, made the life of Lavi that much more important and unforgettable. He didn’t want to leave it, as it felt more and more like his destined role. 

The Noah in front of him tottered, as if on the edge of a beam despite the fact they were on flat ground, and Lavi noticed his eyes change into mercury. Interesting, how only then did Timcampy settle on that white hair.

“Lavi!” Allen threw himself at the red-head. “How are you, how have you been, how’s Bookman?”

Lavi laughed. “I’m doing well. Sorta.” He titled his head and saw Allen’s eyes draw to the new scar there. “Panda and I, we left the Order, we’re recording things from the Noah’s side now.”

“Oh.” Allen took a step back, and Lavi found himself missing the warmth. 

“Thing is though, who we really want to follow, is you. So what do you say, let me follow you around? I helped out pretty well today.”

He thought Allen would say yes, after all Johnny had wiggled his way into Allen’s group, but the white haired boy shock his head. “The Noah are the easy part, and not what I’m really concerned about. Though they are the more pressing ones to worry about. You don’t wan to stay with me, you’ll get hurt.”

“Like Johnny? I saw his leg.”

Allen frowned. “You did? But…must have been what I can’t remember during that first possession.”

“Allen, please,” and Lavi found he was asking as a friend and not as a Bookman, because being a friend was more important. “Let me help you.”

“I need to destroy the Noah. Can you take one out for me, or give me information about where they might be next?”

“I’ll be tricky without Gramps knowing, but yeah, I can do that. But how do I get the information to you?”

“I’ve got some old ear pieces from the Order. I mean really old, they don’t work very well. But after we had Tim eat one he gets all the messages loud and clear.” The mentioned golem fluttered proudly from his perch on Allen’s head and then zoomed off to collect a wireless transmitter. 

They both watched him go, then Lavi turned to his friend again. “You’re alright, truly?” He expected to see Allen smile and say that he was fine, and when he didn’t found himself touched by how honest Allen was being with him.

“I’m doing alright,” the exorcist said in a manner that suggested he was coping as well as he could, “Johnny makes sure I eat and using the Ark has helped a lot. Neah’s…difficult at times, but I have to deal with him, there really isn’t any other way for me to live. I don’t have a choice.”

Lavi pulled his friend into a hug. “I’m sorry you have to go through this.” He felt Allen return the embrace, lowering his forehead so it rested on the Bookman’s shoulder. 

“I not doing it alone any more,” Allen whispered. “While that scares me because I don’t want to get anyone hurt, I’m also really really happy about it.”

“Same here.” Lavi answered, pulling back and ruffling Allen’s hair up in a brotherly fashion. The younger male smiled at him, not overly bright but real, and Lavi just knew things would turn out alright in the end.


	5. Chapter 5

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Neah does some explaining about his past and Kanda spots a stranger in the Order.

As soon as Lavi left the Ark, Allen rounded on Neah. Which mainly involved talking to the air and waving his hands around as he marched down the street. 

“That’s the second Noah you killed!” He shouted. 

_Well, yes. I did say I’d get rid of them._

“I thought we were going to exorcise them!”

_Because that worked so well with Tyki._

“Yeah, well, apparently he’s your son. Maybe that makes him special.” Actually, it most defiantly did. Tyki was suddenly _family,_ and _family that cared_ considering how he helped Allen quite a few times over the past year. But even before then, Allen had always thought of the Portuguese man as a when-times-are-good friend. 

_It shouldn’t._

“Do you even care you have a son?”

_No. The only reason I wanted one to begin with was so I could have a host later._

Allen wrinkled his nose. How inhuman, but Neah obviously didn’t care about Allen’s opinion. Considering he had bashed Wisely’s head in with a rock. 

_Look,_ Neah sighed in his head, _how about next ime I put you under so you don’t have to watch me kill someone. No use feeling guilty, and don’t deny it I know you do, as I had total control at the time and you were unable to push me aside. But I can spare you the visuals if you want._

Allen paused in his marching, actually considering. But no, not watching didn’t make that much of a difference, he would still be aware of the death eventually and he did not want to give Neah the chance to do something else too that Allen wouldn’t remember. 

“No. But I have a question, Neah. I share a lot of your memories; I went through a lot instead of watching you wield that rock, and you enjoyed most of your days with the Noah Clan. You and Rhode, were, ah,”

_Partners in amazing sex?_

“I was going to say lovers, you prat. And you’re a pedophile, by the way. She was what, 10 when you met her, 13 when you first slept together?”

_Ah, no. 12 when we met. Did you enjoy those memories?_

Allen floundered, turning red and tripping over his own feet. “What?! No, of course not. It’s…it’s Rhode! You’re a creeper, for asking that and going after her. But you were happy with her, and liked most of the other Noahs. And you got to spend time with your long lost real brother. You had a good home life with them, though I can’t agree with what you did then any more than I can agree with what the Earl is doing now. So I’m really confused, why did you betray your family?”

Neah didn’t answer, and after awhile Allen gave up waiting for one and made his way to the kitchen. Timcampy, sensing that the final destination was food, happily flapped his wings from his perch on Allen’s head, providing a breeze to the teen’s neck that felt rather good. He was still slightly warm from exerting himself in the fight. 

A few meters from the kitchen however, Neah spoke again. 

_Allen, do you believe in God? I mean, truly believe._

“Yeah, he’s real. I mean, I’ve never talked to him like some of the Finders have, I don’t pray or go to Church. But he must be real for the Order, for Innocence to exist.”

_And what do you think of him?_

“He’s a bigger prat than you are.”

Neah laughed, but Allen didn’t find it funny. All the teachings, well those he knew of, spoke of a forgiving God who helped those on Earth. And he did, to some extent. He provided Innocence after all. But he also let this war continue for so long, allowed lives to be so unhappy. God may powerful, but he wasn’t good. Allen wondered if God just watched the Earth as if it were a never-ending play.

_Yes, he’s a prat. And not very helpful, but he does give humans a priority in his life._

“Where are you going with this Neah?”

_Remember when Komui first told you about the War and the Cube?_

“Yeah?”

_Think about it again, and we’ll talk after you eat. I know you’re starving._

Allen felt Neah retreat, removing himself from what Allen was mentally and physically doing. Somehow, the teen wasn’t expecting their next conversation to be sunshine and roses.

* * *

Tim’s sudden appearance and attempt to steal bites of dinner announced Allen’s return. Johnny looked over his shoulder from his crutch supported position at the counter to smile at him. Only Allen’s returned smile wasn’t very bright.

“Did something go wrong?”

“Hm, no, not really.” Allen flashed him a big grin, but then let his face fall again. “It’s just, learned a couple of, well, hindrances, to Neah’s and my situation. Apparently Neah can’t fly, and if Gabriel is activated when he takes over we drop like a stone.”

“You’re okay, aren’t you?” Johnny scanned his friend up and down for injures. 

“Yeah, we’re good. Lavi showed up.”

Lavi! He had never told Allen, or the Fourteenth, about meeting up with the redhead previously. “Is he here?”

“No, he’s…working with the Noah. Undercover for me apparently now. It’s so weird, I’m not used to letting you guys help me.”

“Get used to it.” Johnny said, brandishing a wooden spoon at Allen. 

“I’m trying.” The exorcist bit into an apple, and Johnny went back to prepping for dinner. Pity Lavi hadn’t stayed for dinner, he was hoping for an opinion about his food from someone who wouldn’t eat everything put in front of them. 

“Johnny?”

“Hmm?”

“Why did the War start? Way back in the beginning?”

Johnny stopped chopping to answer. “You know, I’m not sure. But I’d guess and say because something upset the Earl enough and he decided to destroy the world.”

“Mm, kay. And, do you believe in God?”

“Of course, how else do you come back from missions?”

“Skill?”

Johnny laughed. “Skill, that God gave you. Why? Has the Fourteenth being saying odd things?”

“Kinda. And I still never know when I can trust him. He’s rather fickle.”

“Allen, you know you can always trust me, right?” He turned around to lean his back against the counter. “I may not be able to help you fight battles with the Noah or Akuma, but the ones with the Fourteenth, if he ever confuses you, you can talk things over with me.”

“I know, and thank you Johnny.”

Had he been steadier, the scientist would have reached over and ruffled Allen’s hair, hoping for a brighter smile. But he settled for the pensive one the teen wore for now.

* * *

Fully prepared to take Neah’s after dinner conversation with a tablespoon of salt, Allen crawled onto the bed in his room. No use sitting on a hard floor if they were going to talk for awhile. 

“Neah?”

_What did Koumi tell you?_

“That Innocence was a substance used to win a war a long time ago, because it could destroy Akuma, and the Earl was defeated.”

_And after came the Three Days of Darkness, Noah’s Flood, yes?_

“Yeah.”

_So, if the Three Days of Darkness was the result of the Earl loosing, and that’s his goal – destroy the world - something doesn’t add up, right?_

Allen didn’t say anything, but Neah had a point. 

_What do you know about Noah’s Flood?_

“It was a flood.”

_Bravo, genius._

“Hey! My reading skills aren’t the best, the Bible is too hard.”

_And Cross thought it was more important you knew math. I know, I live in your head._

_Noah’s Flood was caused by God, an attempt to destroy human kind and start over. But the destruction was so great, so horrific that God decided he couldn’t do it again and so vowed to not interfere at large with the affairs of men. What the Bible doesn’t say though, is that God destroyed the world to end the War. The Earl was making akuma, and was winning. Back then, there was only one Exorcist. It was inevitable that the Earl would win. God didn’t like that, and created the flood, hoping to stop the Earl._

“It didn’t work, the Earl is still here.”

_Of course he still is. God can’t kill him. But the point was to show the Earl the result of the war, how horrible it would be, a dead world. It was to encourage him to stop. And of course, God planned ahead. Contacted Noah, so the Earth could regrow. But Noah was angry at God for what he did too, and joined the Earl._

“Wait, the Earl isn’t a Noah?” Allen frowned

_No._

“I know his name is Adam, but you also said he was immortal.” Allen frowned, thinking, and Neah waited for him to come to the right conclusion. “Are you telling me the Earl is the Adam? The first ever human?”

Allen flopped backwards onto his pillows. He was already sitting, but he figured for this conversation he’d want to be super stable.

_Yes. Eating from the Tree of Knowledge gave him and Eve great power. It’s how the Earl came into his being as a magician, how he cast a spell to weave Noah’s decedents to his side for all of time._

“And Eve?”

_She is still around. They are no longer together however. When they were cast out from the Garden of Eden, they fought. Adam blamed Eve for their banishment at first, but she argued that she had been tempted by the devil because she was flawed, the material she was made of wasn’t right. Which meant she was calling Adam badly made, as God based her off him. Adam took the other approaching, saying God had gone wrong with her instead of him._

_Their…lover’s spat was the first war. Adam’s akuma are an effort to make a perfect wife, something better than Eve to prove God was wrong making women and not men. Eve came to the understanding that humans were flawed, were supposed to be flawed, and set out to destroy Adam’s plans because she could see what it was doing to the world._

_She was that exorcist I mentioned before._

It was odd, thinking that the Earl, Adam, had loved someone. That was one of the problems Allen faced with sharing a mind with Neah, he got to see the human side of the Noah, and it made him that more reluctant to kill them. 

“You said Eve’s still around. Does she fight for the Order?”

_She’s…been changed. So no. She created the Innocence, but didn’t actually win the war like the Cube claims. God just brushed his hand across the board and reset everything. But he did divide up the Innocence. Originally there was just one piece, not 109._

“So the Earl wants to destroy the Innocence because it reminds him of his wife?” It was so weird, knowing this War started with a relationship gone bad. Cross’s relationships had pretty much all gone sour, but none ever developed into something a hundredth as large as the War. 

“Wait a minute, how is what we’re doing, getting rid of Noah and destroying Innocence, going to end the War once and forever if God couldn’t do it?”

_God promised to no longer directly meddle on Earth, he was devastated by the Flood, so it’s up to us._

_Destroying Innocence and getting riding of the Noah will be easy, but getting rid of the Earl is the hard part. It has to do with the spell he cast on Noah. In doing so, he linked his soul and memories with the fragments of Noah’s. It used a part of the Innocence Eve created, allowing Noah to destroy it. The Innocence was created with God’s help, so it’s holy and powerful. The piece Adam has plays a huge role in his ability to look and act as he does at the ripe old age of six thousand. If we destroy the Heart, Adam’s immortality goes._

_The catch is, ‘Earl’ is a title given to the oldest alive Noah in the clan. If we kill Adam before someone else, the title will pass to someone else. Noah reincarnate to protect the ‘Earl’, and will continue to do so as long as he exists. But as Adam cast the spell, if we kill him while he holds the rank of ‘Earl’ with no one to pass it on to, there will be no more reincarnations. So we have to kill everyone else first, and him last._

“Why can’t we just exorcise them?”

_Tyki aside, we both know how that went, the more traumatic the death the longer till they reincarnate. An exorcism doesn’t rank very high. We could get ride of Sheryl tomorrow and his replacement could pop up in a month. We need to make sure they don’t come back for at least two years, because I hope to be done within that time line. Got it?_

“Skin hasn’t come back yet.” 

_I don’t want to take chances._

Allen figured. Neah put a lot of time into this plan, years, and his death. And procreation. Oh course he didn’t want to take short cuts. “How do you know all this, Neah?”

The Noah was silent for a while before answering. _I am a Noah by fluke, tied to the clan by mistake and not bound to serve the Earl like the others are. For this reason…God himself came to me in a dream. Adam tells the Noah they have been charged with bringing about a second flood, to give a new start to human kind in their image. But really, he just wants his revenge on Eve, and hopes to bring the War to the point where God has to step in again to confront him. Adam wants to show off his perfect human and show God how much better than Eve it is. He hasn’t gotten there yet, but each time an Akuma evolves he’s one step closer._

“Did Mana know all this?”

_Some of it. Enough so he knew my plans. But there you go, when I learned all this I confronted the Earl, he responded by killing Mana’s wife. That’s when I tried to return the favor and killed most of the Noah. And then Mana and I ended up running for our lives._

_Now go to sleep._ Neah’s voice took on that rare fatherly quality. Most of the time he was snappy and stern with his tenor voice, but there moments when Allen felt like he meant more to Neah then just a body to use. _I’m going to see if I can talk to Crown Clown to see if we can come to an agreement._

“Can you do that?”

_Well, I can try._

* * *

It was a silly thing to do, but Road couldn’t help it. Ever since Neah had shown up at her little meadow she had been going on a regular basis hoping he’d show up again. Sure, Allen was cute and interesting, but it was Neah she really missed. They had been a couple for three years, Rhode’s first and only relationship, and she held onto those memories fiercely. Road too, because Neah was something new, and she liked that. 

Not that she had high hopes of Neah showing up again, they last time they had met (aside from just over a week ago when he interrupted her flying) had been when he had tried to kill her, and had just succeeded in awaking Road instead. Their reunion would not be hugs and kisses. 

Though she wished it would be. 

Sighing, she plopped down in the grass and began ripping up the small white flowers around her. First, pull them from the ground. Then pluck off the petals one by one. Shred the leaves. And finally, with surgical percussion, use the end of a sharpened candle to evenly cut the stem in two vertically. Road had quite a collection of flower parts in piles around her before she felt a desire to turn around. 

“Ah, Rhode.”

Technically, she was Road, would never be Rhode again, but that didn’t mean she forgot how to just be Rhode. And if that’s what Neah wanted, she’d give him it. 

Rhode smiled up at him. Neah was standing there in Allen’s clothes; black pants and instead of a shirt a black cloak that snapped together in front. She had been watching Allen secretly since she had destroyed Crown Clown, knew the lack of a shirt was due to his second Innocence, and she highly approved of the view. Too bad he didn’t wear his pants low. 

All that black made Neah’s skin look paler than hers, but it was still Noah gray. She preferred it back when Neah’s hair was black, not Allen’s white, but she’d take it. 

“What are you doing here, handsome? Come to kill me?” She brought her candle up and placed the tip on the side of her mouth, a reminder she was always armed. 

“Eventually, but not today.” Neah knelt down in the grass in front of her and lifted a hand to cup her check. Really, even being the younger of the two she always had to make the first move and be the more aggressive one. 

Rhode pounced forward, bringing their lips together. Neah rocked backwards to sit on his heels and Rhode arched into him, on hand snaking around his waist and the other digging itself into his hair. Allen’s body and Neah’s experience, what could be better? 

It was a good kiss, made better by the almost forty year wait, and they were obviously both desperate for more. Neah moved from her lips to her neck, sucking at it as he pushed her down into the grass. She unclasped his cloak and threw it to the side somewhere. With both hands, Rhode squeezed Neah’s rear, sharp fingernails making him gasp, and then trailed her hands upward over his bare back. 

She meant to follow the curve of his spine until she reached the back of his head to pull him down, but halfway up Neah’s back she was shocked by something and pulled back with a cry of pain. 

“Rhode!”

Neah pulled away from her collarbone to look done at her in concern. So many years, and still, he loved her. It made Rhode’s blood sing.

Rhode brought her hands to her chest in a fist, then uncurled them so both of the Noah could see the healing burn marks on her fingertips. “I touched Gabriel.”

Neah kissed each fingertip, though they were healed by the time the first one touched his lips. 

“How do you stand it?” Rhode asked, not hiding her disgust with Innocence. “It hurts me. It must be hurting you too.”

“It…tolerates me. For Allen’s sake.” 

Rhode couldn’t help but smile at that. Little Allen affected everyone, and even Innocence which wasn’t truly alive. Rhode hadn’t expected Tyki’s suggest of ‘think at it’ to work back in Paris, but apparently it had. No wonder Apocryphos wanted Allen gone, he could probably affect the Heart too. 

Neah placed a kiss on the top of her chest, the revealed skin from when he had undone her first button, and then redid her shirt. Rhode pouted. “I thought we were gonna have fun,” she said, running a forefinger along the hem of Neah’s pants. 

He responded with a heated, deep throated kiss, and pulled away leaving her breathless. “Tease.”

Neah chuckled. “I would love to continue, but I don’t want to hurt you.” He held up his left hand, solid Innocence, to prove his point. 

“We could just kiss.”

Neah smirked. “I did…want to talk to Tyki Mikk. Is he around?”

“No.”

“Oh.”

Rhode stared at her lover. “You talked to Wisley, didn’t you?” And killed him, but that remained unvoiced. 

“Yes,” he answered, to both.

She narrowed her eyes, then closed them and sunk deeper into the ground. Neah shifted so he was sitting next to her and began playing with her hair. 

The fact that Tyki was Neah’s son was the reason he was her favorite uncle. Oh, Neah had hurt her terrible by betraying the family, no doubt about that. But she still loved him, and even just catching what could be glimpses of him in Tyki’s profile made Rhode’s life seem less empty. 

“I didn’t know him before he turned, of course,” Rhode began. “But he’s a good person.”

“Hmm, I gathered from Allen’s memories. Does he…does he know?”

“Right now, I think just myself and Millenie know. Did you want me to tell him?”

“No, no that’s alright.” Neah leaned down for a quick kiss, and Rhode smiled into it. 

“So, when will you have that Innocence under enough control for us to have fun?”

Neah gave her another quick kiss. “At this rate, a month maybe.” Another kiss. “Meet me in New York then?”

Rhode swung an arm over his neck and pulled him down for a longer lip lock. “Of course.”

“Right then, I should get going. See you in soon, Rhode love.”

“Bye Neah.”

He didn’t gate out, he walked over to that same hill and once on the other side called upon the Ark. 

Rhode couldn’t wait to see him. She’d bring the whole family with her. Because as she learned all those years ago, Neah and her loved each other, but they loved other things more. For her, it was family. Road already had her revenge, now it was time to make sure it didn’t happen again.

* * *

Kanda usually ignored those around him, or at least objectified them and saw them as obstacles to either move around or push aside. So he had no idea why he found himself secretly following an exorcist through the hallways of the Order. He told himself it was because the exorcist had his hood up and this was suspicious. And that the style of his coat was unfamiliar, and this was also suspicious. 

But perhaps what he was questioning himself the most for wasn’t why he noted the exorcist, but that he hadn’t confronted him yet and demanded answers. For some reason, Kanda didn’t want to announce his uneasy feelings about the stranger. He felt something good wouldn’t come of it.

Though, maybe he should have done something, he reconsidered, as the exorcist gave him the slip. 

Not that Kanda admitted that, and continued to wonder around the area of the Order and then make his way towards where he thought the exorcist had been heading, namely down. 

Which turned out to be a good thing, judging by the explosion he heard. 

Drawing Mugen, Kanda began running towards the closest stairs. He missed the old set up of the tower, you could easily see if something was a miss by scanning circular hallways and looking up and down. This new, well not so new he guessed, building as it had been HQ for about a year and a half now, was long with no opening between floors. It was impossible to know what was going on where without actually stumbling upon it. What bad security. Maybe he should hint to Komui to knock out the center of the back part of the building so they could have a deep, rectangular tower heading towards the center of the Earth with Hevlaska at the bottom. 

Hevlaska…

He had just been following sounds, and from that kept descending and descending. The church they occupied had been modified before the Order occupied it, adding lots of levels ending with a tall one at the bottom for Hevlaska to live in. Fuck, is she was under attack – 

The alarms rang, but Kanda didn’t pay much attention to the shrill sound. What did get his attention was Komui’s voice flittering in through his golem. “There has been a Noah sighted in the lower cavern. I repeat, there has been a Noah sighted in the lower cavern.”

Kanda cursed again. He really should have tried to see who was hiding under that hood. He blamed it on the sense of tranquility the Order had been experiencing since the Ark closed. Missions had been less frequent, as they now took more time to complete due to travel time alone, but there had been very little activity from the Earl. Granted, Buenos Aries had been burnt to the ground, but there had been bodies, not ash particles there which made it unlikely to have been an Akuma attack. 

Which meant Noah, and as the Earl never claimed credit, that meant Walker. 

His chest twinged. He had returned to the Order because he felt indebted to Walker. For saving him and Alma, for being a fellow exorcist, for bringing him back on the Ark, for being a friend. For doing so much for Kanda’s mindset, and being rewarded by Kanda thinking of him as not as Allen Walker but a Noah who could destroy the Order Kanda hated. 

He was no better than the Order. 

He had to make it up to Walker somehow, not that he had any idea how, but the first step was to find him. 

It better not be Walker downstairs. Sure, it seemed like the Black Order had been pushed aside, as if the Earl was instead focused on Walker. Everyone seemed to be, as if the next direction of the War all depended on what he, or the Noah, did. 

But even if Kanda was waiting for Walker, searching for him even, he did not want to find him in the lower cavern attacking Hevlaska. 

He didn’t get what he wanted. 

There was Walker, on the rail of the platform one stood on when talking to Hevlaska. His skin was ashen, and when that white head turned to look over his shoulder Kanda found himself looking into lion eyes. They didn’t seem surprised to see him. Walker’s cursed eye was different too, it has turned into thick spirals that traveled down his whole cheek and spread halfway to his ear. 

Hevlaska, if it was possible, was more glowy and taller than usual and it struck Kanda that while he knew she was an exorcist he had never seen her fight. But there were craters in the wall and floor, in the center of which were short, glowing spears. 

Walker, no, the Noah, ignored him and swan dived off the rail. He was quick, and with Crown Clown’s fingers (how was a Noah using Innocence?) slashed into Hevlaska’s side to withdraw a innocence fragment. Hevlaska, much to Kanda’s credit, did not vocalize her pain very much and quickly retaliated by shooting spears out of her arms towards where the Noah landed after his dive-and-slash. 

The Fourteenth however had already moved. He stopped just long enough to deactivate Crown Clown, toss the Innocence from his left hand to his right, and crush it before Hevlaska fired again. 

Kanda took a quick look at Hevlaska’s lower body. She had always been slightly transparent, a trait that Kanda would never admit made him feel slightly disturbed, and Kanda could see the numerous slashes to her side. There was also less Innocence in her than Kanda remembered. 

The Noah dived again, Hevlaska scrunched up like a worm to get out of his way, and Kanda found himself hesitating. Again. 

There was a flash of white, the Fourteenth using Crown Clown as a shield against Hevlaska’s attack, and then the Noah was behind him, breathing into his ear.

“What’s wrong? Don’t want to stab this body? It’s not like you’d turn poor Allen into a Noah, that’s already been done.” 

Kanda always expected the Noah’s voice to be different than Walker’s, deeper maybe, more adult, but it was that same alto the bean sprout always had. And it made him realize, yes, the Noah was right. Because he refused to believe Walker was gone, and that meant he’d have to deal with a sword wound in his side eventually. 

The Japanese man whirled, Mugen out but not activated, and the Musician…the Musician flew. Wings sprouted from his back, and with clumsy maneuvering the Noah launched himself into the air and out of Kanda’s reach. He remembered something Miranda had blabbered about, about Walker having turned into an angel. This figure before him, if only his eyes were silver and not gold and the skin was Allen's normal pale, Kanda could see it. Complete with fucking fake smile. 

Kanda glared, not sure how to attack when his opponent was meters in the air above him, but Hevlaska managed that instead. Two spears embedded themselves into Neah’s left wing and he dropped onto the platform with a cry that almost made Kanda’s heart twinge. The wings, they had to be Innocence based off of the glow, deactivated along with Crown Clown, and Kanda didn’t waste time pinning the Noah to the floor. 

“Bean sprout, you better wake the hell up!”

Neah laughed. “Oh, he’s up alright. I keep him close, make him watch what I do.”

Kanda shifted, pinning the Noah’s left hand with his knee and not his hand to allow himself to press the edge of Mugan’s now activated blade against the neck below him. “Innocence is something you Noah are supposed to shy away from, it’s your weakness. If I cut you enough, if Hevlaska pins to you the ground with enough spears, do you think you’ll be forced to retreat?”

“Maybe, but certainly the amount of violence you’re talking about would kill Allen.”

Kanda snarled, feeling as if his hands were tied. Not wanting to use his blade, he struck the Noah in the temple with Mugen’s hilt. 

“Fucking brat, you said you weren’t going to loose!”

And the fucking brat smiled. With the way his head titled, the corners of his lips upturned, and his eyes closed, the teen underneath Kanda could have been Allen Walker and not the Fourteenth. 

Angry, Kanda struck the Noah again, vaguely noticing the small cut from the first blow had already healed. The Musician took advantage of the shift in Kanda’s center of balance, rolling them over so the Noah was lying flat on top of the older exorcist. But it wasn’t a restricting position; the Noah was just lying on top of him. And then Walker’s voice was whispering in his ear. 

“The war isn’t over, Bakanda. New York, in a month.”

And then the weight was gone, The Fourteenth (or was it Walker? Kanda couldn’t see his eyes) had leaped away to avoid a glowing spear. 

“Che,” Kanda said as he got to his feet, Hevlaska shot a little close for comfort, but he hadn’t been hit. She had really good aim, surprisingly. 

The brat (for both the Noah and Walker were one) was standing on the rail again, back to Kanda. The exorcist made to lunge forward, but stopped as the Noah started singing. 

He had never really heard Walker sing, not properly. It had been a vague sound on the Ark that first time that he never gave his full attention too, and for subsequent gate openings Walker had sang under his breath. Kanda knew the sprout had sometimes retreated to the Ark, and on occasion would sing in it, but from outside the gate Kanda again just noticed that someone was singing and didn’t give the noise much more attention than that. 

What a pity. 

Sure, it was the Musician singing, not Walker, but the body was the same and thus the sound was too. And oh, how beautiful it was. Kanda didn’t think of himself as an appreciator of the arts, but due to Tiedoll he could tell what was good and what wasn’t. Walker was superb. 

Kanda wasn’t emotionless, as many finders were wont to believe, but he was a control freak. He kept a steely face and hid what he was feeling on purpose, but listening to the Noah sing he couldn’t help but feel his heart twitch. 

The lyrics spoke of pain, of fighting a never ending battle – because if the fighting stopped you would surely die. Fighting was the only thing you could do, so you did, despite all the trouble it brought you, because it ensured you were alive. But sometimes, more so now than in the past, you wondered if it was all worth it, if maybe you should just give up to save yourself the pain, to finally find peace.

Kanda found himself thinking if the Noah was singing Walker’s thoughts, and if so the bean sprout was so tortured Kanda couldn’t bare the thought of adding another weight to his shoulders. What could an attack by an friend, by someone you had saved, be seen as other than more trauma for an already wounded soul?

Fuck, since when had he been touched by music and cared that much about saving someone pain?

He made to launch forward, but discovered the teen had disappeared. Kanda had been so intently listening to the music that he had failed to notice the brat move. Or other Order exorcists enter the room behind him. He did notice Hevlaska’s sudden attack downward; without thinking Kanda jumped over the end of the platform. As he fell he saw the Musician, golden eyes and all, smile as he crushed the remaining pieces of Innocence he had taken from Hevlaska’s belly. 

Hevlaska screamed, collapsing onto the floor and turning into a trembling glowing pile of flesh. No, not glowing, that was fading, and Kanda wondered if part of the reason Hevlaska lived so long was because of Innocence. She was a parasite. 

It was the scream of pain that snapped Walker. Kanda saw it happen, right as he landed meters away from the white-haired teen. His eyes switched to silver quicker than the speed of a blink and he turned to run. Not away from Kanda, at him. 

Trying to shake the last bars of the song, Kanda was slower than normal pulling out Mugen. Not that it would have helped matters. Walker leaped, and from his back sprouted wings. But not the same wings from before, these were fuller, whiter, larger. Healthier. And carried him over Kanda to land near Hevlaska’s head. 

Kanda sprinted after him, man those wings were fast. And Hevlaska was a lot taller than he had thought. When he reached Walker, there were tears in his eyes and it looked like he had been apologizing, but what really made Kanda pause was the single question he clearly heard. 

“Hevlaska, are you Eve? He won’t tell me.”

Hevlaska didn’t have eyes that Kanda was aware of, but by the tension in her body and the opening of her mouth the samurai was sure the question surprised her. 

“Allen, how do –“

“Time Recovery!”

Curvy clocks started evaporating from Hevlaska’s body, and Walker snapped his head up. He looked startled to see Kanda, and Kanda took offense to that. He was not a person someone forgot, as it usually led to death. 

“Walker, what the fuck – “

“I told you, New York. A month.”

With a giant downbeat of his wings, Walker was air born and quickly heading toward the top of the chamber.

“Allen!” Kanda heard Lenalee scream, and he watched as she lept from the platform into the possessed exorcist. They crashed into wall, for as fast as Walker was Lenalee was faster. 

There was a high-pitched yelp, and a white bundle was lowered by fabric strips. It unraveled near Kanda, and Lenalee dropped the two feet to the floor as Crowned Clown let her go. She seemed okay, just shaken, and Kanda returned his attention upward as shouts of ‘Allen!’ and ‘Walker!’ reached his ears. 

Walker was flying, up and fast towards the ceiling. He heard Lenalee gasp in fear, but at the last second a gate opened and Walker flew through it. Kanda found himself gripping Mugen’s hilt so hard that his knuckles turned white. The brat had gotten away. But he supposed there was some condolence to see he wasn’t with any other Noah. 

Lenalee walked up to him, standing close enough where he could feel the heat radiating from her. “He said to meet him, in New York.”

“Yeah, without the Ark, it’ll take us awhile to get there. You’re brother will have to send us on a mission there tomorrow.”

“But…Hevlaska,”

“Don’t worry about me, Lenalee.” Hevlaska whispered. The two exorcists turned around and walked to her head. Lenalee crouched down and brushed her hand over what Kanda assumed to be Hevlaska’s cheek. 

“Of course I do, you’re a friend.”

“An old, old friend. I have kept living because of my Innocence, but it has been an existence heavy with regret. It is time for that to end.”

“Don’t say that, Hevlaska!” Lenalee was crying now, Kanda had to turn his head to not see the tears. They always bothered him. 

“It’s true. And I do not think I would have lasted much longer anyway. This war is coming to an end.”

There was a clatter, and Kanda turned around to see the elevation platform come to rest on the ground. As soon as it touched, Miranda came stumbling off of it, too blinded by tears to run properly, and collapsed next to Lenalee. “I’m s-sorry, but, but as soon as I – as soon as I –“

“I know,” Hevlaska said. And though she was at the moment healthy, her voice stilled sounded wispy like she was having trouble breathing. 

“I can stay awake for three days, if you, if you want to settle anything.”

“There is no need Miranda, though I appreciate it. I do believe you need to be some place, and it’s best if you leave sooner.”

Miranda looked confused.

“Ah,” broke in Lenalee, “I don’t know if brother can send so many people, so I figured just me and Kanda would go.”

“Go? Go where? Though it’s probably better if I don’t, as I’m so useless.” Miranda sobbed. 

“That’s not true!” Lenalee drew the older woman into a one armed hug. 

“Allen Walker has touched and saved many lives, it would be…wrong to not allow others to have the chance to repay him.”

Hevlaska’s words rang within Kanda. Wrong? Not the word he would choose, but he understood. If he never got the chance to pay Walker back, it would eat him for the entirely of his cursed life.


	6. Chapter 6

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warning: A fair bit of violence in this chapter, and while I glossed over Allen's injuries they aren't pretty pictures. If you don't want to read that, skip the part that's from Lavi's POV. You won't missing anything you can't pick up from other sections.

When Allen gated into one of the Order’s old records room, he was moving at full speed and crashed through one bookshelf and into another. It started a domino effect on that entire side of the room. 

Johnny was very glad he was on the other one. 

“You okay there, Allen?” 

The teen didn’t answer at first, he was trying to prevent Timcampy from biting his ear a second time for disturbing them, but eventually huffed out an answer. 

“Well, hitting these books hurt less than when Lenalee body slammed me into a wall.”

Johnny winced in sympathy; he’d offer to take a look at Allen’s injures back on the Ark but he knew the Fourteenth would have take care of them by then. 

“Your crash entrance made a lot of noise, good thing I already gathered all the useful information from here. Let’s go before anyone from the Order comes to investigate.”

“Hehe, good idea.”

Allen picked himself out of the top two bookshelves in the domino train he had set off and called up the Ark to appear in front of the door. Johnny made for it, but the exorcist put out a hand to halt him as Johnny was about to past him. 

“Allen?”

“He…I…We…killed Hevlaska. If you wanted, we could go see her before we leave.”

Allen wasn’t looking at him, head down and gaze on a far corner. Timcampy had settled on his head, wings limp. Johnny closed his eyes and took a deep breath. He knew people would get hurt, but he didn’t except anyone from the Order to _die_. This was his home, these were his friends and family. And while he and Hevlaska were never close, to be honest she scared him a little, Johnny knew Koumi was and he ached for his boss.

Johnny gave a breathy sob, but then shook his head. Hevlaska was dead, and while he would have liked to say goodbye to her, he knew it wasn’t a good idea. Her death increased the need for him and Allen to leave the Order. Plus, he figured Allen already felt terrible about it, lingering and crying his eyes out would only make him feel worse. And to be honest, he may be out of his cast, but after standing on his leg for the past hour and a half it was aching. He needed to sit. 

“I appreciate it Allen,” Johnny did his best to ignore the tears trickling down his face. Allen was still looking at the floor, so maybe he could hide them from the teen. He stepped forward into the gate’s light. “But it wasn’t your fault, it was the Fourteenth’s.”

“But I am the Fourteenth.”

Johnny turned around and watched Allen come through the gate. With the white background, his ashen skin seemed darker than normal and the new markings around his eye jumped out at Johnny. His face was blank. 

The gate closed, and Johnny shook his head. “No you’re not. You may be a Noah, but that doesn’t mean you’re him. He killed Hevlaska, not you.”

Allen opened his mouth to argue, but Johnny cut him off. “I won’t hear anything more about you being him. You’re not.”

In response, the teen smiled. “Thanks Johnny, it’s nice to know some people think there’s a difference between us.”

There was something off with Allen’s expression and tone of voice. The smiled wasn’t bright, sure, but it was honest. But Johnny got the feeling that maybe Allen didn’t include himself in ‘some people’, but that was silly.

Allen stepped forward, passing Johnny, as has he did so his appearance shifted back to his original one. Minus his scar, though it looked more like a tattoo now. The training he and the Musician had been doing was benefiting them both. The Noah could use diminished Innocence. Allen’s control of his appearance was back and he could heal his wounds without switching mental places with the Fourteenth. 

“Did you find anything?”

Johnny’s mission had been to find any old records in the Order pertaining to the start of the War and the time before the Flood, about Adam and Eve, and about identifying and locating the Heart. Johhny was less trusting of the Fourteenth’s story than Allen, and the teen himself didn’t have absolute faith in it. 

“Maybe. There were a couple of old dissertations about Innocence, and I found one that is all about the Flood. There were also a few books dating from before the Order was founded, and I took them on a whim.” He shifted the books from one hand to another, and leaned a little to the right to put more weight on his good leg. 

Allen noticed the limp and took the stack into his own hands with a frown. “You shouldn’t push yourself. Food can wait, you go sit down.”

Johnny laughed. “I can start chopping and mixing things while I sit. I know after a fight you’re always super hungry. I wouldn’t want you to faint on me.”

“I swear, I do something once and it’s held over my head forever.”

“Just be grateful Kanda didn’t see, then you’d never live it down.”

“You’re not letting me live it down.”

Johnny laughed. 

With a flurry of wings, Tim left Allen’s head to hover in the air in front of both their faces. He opened his mouth, all sharp pointy teeth, and Lavi’s voice came forth. 

“Allen?”

“I’m here.”

“Cool. I know you’ve been city hopping, can you be in Oklahoma City in two days?”

Johnny spoke up first. “Yeah, we’ll be there.” Now that his leg was better, he didn’t want to be left behind when Allen went traveling. 

“Johnny!” Lavi said, smile evident in his voice. “Looking forward to seeing both of you in a few days then.”

Tim chomped down, closing the link, and zoomed into the kitchen. 

“I really think you should rest instead of coming.”

Johnny waved a hand in the air. “I’ve got two days to rest. As large as the Ark is, I could use to go out.”

The teen sighed. “Fine.”

* * *

Allen had started in Mexico, gating into a large city and then traveling for a few days afterward to smaller towns in the area, killing akuma as he went. 

It was good practical experience for Neah, learning how to fight with Crown Clown and Gabriel. And it helped Allen feel like he was doing something good, especially when his plans for the War were not visibly progressing. 

Apocryphos had last been spotted in South America, so it would be easier for him to follow Allen if he was on a connected continent. The plan was to lure him to New York, and for that to happen on the right day Allen had to lead him slowly and discourage him from leaving the area. After Mexico, Allen had moved north to California, and from there proceeded east in a zig-zag pattern that crossed the border into Canada and then back into the United States. It kept Apocryphos on his tail, but not too close. 

This time, Allen gated into Oklahoma City, Johnny on his heels. Not fully healed, but healthy, it was nice to have a travel partner again. First things first though; Allen’s eye detected seven akuma in the city limits. 

Nervously, very hesitant to do so, scared to do so, Allen had to admit there were benefits to being a Noah. Healing to rival Kanda’s, for one. And the ability to control his eye. He could activate it on a whim, instead of waiting for an akuma to walk into close range. 

“Why don’t you wait here,” Allen gestured to a bakery across the street, “while I take out the akuma. They’re all low, nothing above a Two, so I shouldn’t be long.”

“Okay.” Johnny didn’t look too happy about the idea, but went along with it. 

Allen was grateful. He didn’t want the scientist to over exert himself. 

It took him a bit longer than planned to get all seven, simply because they required him to do a lot of traveling between targets. Really, why couldn’t they just be together? Plus, Allen kept arguing with Neah in his head. Usually they split exorcisms, but Allen wasn’t in a mood to let Neah out to fight, not after Hevlaska. Neah decided to give him a killer headache until he got his way.

Thankfully, Lavi showed up and helped him destroy the last two akuma, a pair of Level Twos. 

“You okay there, Sprout?” the red head asked as his hammer lowered him to the ground. 

“Yeah, Neah’s just being a prat.”

He raised an eyebrow, and Allen realized the junior Bookman had noticed the bit of melancholy he been trying to hide from Johnny. He sighed, picking up his cloak, and started walking towards where he left his friend, Lavi stepping up to walk beside him. 

“I take it you heard about what happened at the Order a few days ago.”

The red head hmmed in response. 

“I keep thinking about what will happen when I destroy the Heart, will other parasites die too, like Hevlaska?”

“I doubt it, Hevlaska’s life kinda depended on her Innocence. No one else needs the part their Innocence is connected too. Crowley would have a difficult life sure, without his teeth, but he could manage. Wait, your heart is still held together by Innocence, isn’t it?”

Allen shook his head. “Neah fixed that.”

_In Paris, when Tyki and Rhode cut off your arm._

“A bit before Johnny found me, so I’m good. Wouldn’t make much difference though, Lavi, making it through the month is going to be hard.” He ran a hand through his hair.

“What do you mean? You don’t have anything dangerous planned, do you?”

“No but…” he trailed off. He didn’t want to heap his burdens on others, even though they knew they existed. But he probably should. 

“You remember Levilier’s orders? To kill me if Neah took control?” Allen continued walking, looking straight ahead, but he could feel Lavi’s gaze narrow in on him.

“Yeah, but it doesn’t matter. It’s been this long and you’re still you.”

Ah, another one. Neither he nor Johnny would agree if they knew the state of his mind.

“Lavi, I can’t separate who did what when I was at the Order recently. Was it me who took the Innocence out of Hevlaska, or Neah? And when I think of things that we both have memories of, London, Timcampy, or…or Mana, mine aren’t the first to surface.”

There was a hand on his wrist, and Allen felt himself spin as Lavi pulled him around to face the older exorcist. The red head placed two heavy hands on Allen’s shoulders. 

“Listen Allen, you won’t loose to him. I know you, you’re a fighter. You’ve been doing great for this long, and soon enough this War will be over and you’ll be back to your old self. It’s just a month, you’ve managed more than that, and just think of things the Fourteenth doesn’t know. He doesn’t know Kanda, or Lenalee, or Crowley, or me, or any of the other exorcists at Headquarters. Just think of us. I’ll even come stay with you in the Ark a bit here and there if it would help. And at the end of all this, we’ll all take a well deserved vacation, alright?”

Allen could tell by looking into Lavi’s eyes the older teen really believed that. And if Lavi could, Allen could pretend to for a little while. But he knew, for the War to end Adam had to be the last Noah killed, which meant he as the Fourteenth had to die first. He wouldn’t be getting that vacation. 

“I could use a nice vacation. But no beaches, I’ll burn.”

Lavi laughed and let him go. They walked a block before Lavi spoke up again. “You do realize that the entire Noah family is planning on showing up in New York, right?”

“I know Rhode. I planned on it. Just be ready to fight.”

* * *

New York was, in Kanda’s opinion, boring. It wasn’t much different from London, or other large cities he’d been to. Though they took less kindly to Asians than he expected. _Lotte_ and _Crowley_ were getting the most information from people they met. It was infuriating. 

At least Komui had booked them rooms at a hotel before hand. And it was a nice enough place where the staff over looked their mixed group in favor of the large amount of money they were paying for the penthouse suite. 

The suite was great. Better than most accommodations he had stayed in, but he understood it was a necessity and not a luxury. They had no idea where or when exactly Walker would show up. This place was near the center of the city, but more importantly the tallest. From the windows they could be on the lookout for disturbances and it gave Lenalee easy access to come and go when searching for the beansprout. 

While searching the city on foot, it was better than just staring down at the streets from the roof, all of them came across akuma. Marie mentioned the number to be higher than was normal for a city this large, and Kanda had a thought that maybe it wasn’t just exorcists meeting here. In fact, he was getting paranoid, seeing the faces of Noah in the crowd.

He wished he had a way to talk to Walker, because he had a strong urge to tell him to not come, that this was a trap. As it was, he could only hope someone from the Order found him first when he did show up.

* * *

To say he was nervous would be an understatement. Allen knew, once he opened the Ark, he’d be stepping into a city full of enemies. The Noah, Apocryphos, and the Order. After what happened last month, he was positive the exorcists in the Black Order were not going to be easy on him. And if Central had gotten a wind of this rendezvous, then he had to expect Crow as well. 

Neah was giddy with excitement.

_Think of the fun! We should gather them together and sing them to their deaths._

Allen growled. “I told you no.”

“I thought you told me yes.” 

Allen turned to see Johnny coming up behind him. “Not you Johnny, Neah. He’s got a plan in his head, but I don’t trust it. “

_It would be so much easier though._

The exorcist ignored him. It would be, but there was also the potential that he would sing his friends and the people of the city to death too. The information Neah had told him about the war made sense, and the information Johnny found could be taken to agree with it, but as much as Allen liked Neah, sometimes it was hard to completely trust someone who was taking over your body and mind. And who was doing it without qualms. 

_It doesn’t matter anyway. After today, it will be over._

Allen ran his right hand down an inactive Crown Clown. Yeah, it would be. 

He opened his mouth and sang, since Neah had fully awakened he didn’t like to sing the lyrics, but just using the notes and thinking open seemed to work now that they were almost merged. The wooden door in front of him glowed, and then dimmed. Allen pulled it open, and found himself in a deserted part of Central Park. It was early, just after dawn on the month anniversary of Hevlaska’s death, and no one was around. 

Johnny walked through first, two miniature shields hanging from crisscrossed leather straps on his back, and Timcampy fluttered along behind him. Allen sighed, he had tried to get Johnny to realize that for safety reasons he should go first, but the scientist moved through the gate before him half the time.

He stepped through and immediately realized they weren’t alone as he thought they were. Crown Clown ached and sprouted wings, Gabriel unfurling in a grotesquely mutated form instead of its usual glory. With a cry, Allen crashed to his knees, the gate disappearing behind him. 

Apocryphos. 

Allen knew the Innocence would be here, his gating through North America had been an effort to lead him to New York so he’d be here for this, but Apocryphos wasn’t supposed to be near him when he gated in!

Johnny whirled around; Allen saw his eyes flick from the sharp wings growing from his body to up and over his shoulder. “C-Cardinal,” he stammered. 

“Hello again,” Apocryphos said. 

Gathering his body together, Allen jerked to his feet and took a step forward. The living Innocence was close, closer than he had been in months, and all the old effects of being near his presence were coming back. 

Crown Clown and Gabriel were straining towards it, and this close to Apocryphos Neah was banging against his skull. Allen’s second step was more of a shuffle, and Johnny was instantly at his side. No longer able to support himself, he leaned into the scientist and Johnny collapsed under the weight. 

Apocryphos laughed, and reached out a finger to touch Gabriel. Allen could feel the Innocence flowing towards the Cardinal, it’s thoughts happy and homebound. He tried to lash out like he had back when he was in the Order’s cell, but Johnny got there first. 

He snapped on one of the mini talismans he had constructed and wearing on his back. Apocryphos started at the light, bringing a hand up to shield his eyes, but then grinned. 

“That won’t work on me. I’m not an akuma.”

Allen tried to push himself up to crawl away, but collapsed back to the ground due to the trembling in his arms. 

“You have evaded me for far too long, and due to your connection to the fourteenth Noah, a danger to the Heart. It would be better if you, and him, would disappear. And what better vessel to house both of you than me?”

Johnny was behind Allen now, half helping him to stand and half pushing him forward, talisman still glowing. Neah, being stronger now than the last time Allen ran afoul of Apocryphos, was at the forefront of his mind. They were somehow, impossibly, sharing the same spot in his head. Allen could feel the blood running down his face from the stigmata, and he didn’t know if his vision was fuzzy because of the blood, or because it felt like he was staring out of the same eyes twice. 

He knew he was going to loose to Neah in a matter of seconds. 

“Johnny,” he whispered, trying to warn his friend. But in his reflection in Johnny’s glasses, Allen could already see his eyes had turned gold and like that he no longer had control. 

Crown Clown and Gabriel instantly shriveled. Allen could feel their presence retreat the same way his did, leaving Neah full control. 

Apocryphos looked surprised at the way the innocence retreated, still activated but barely so, and Allen felt Neah smile with his mouth. 

“Curious? The Innocence only invokes properly when Allen is in control, and as he’s not you’ll have to absorb me directly instead of through him. But Apocryphos, do you even know where the Heart is?”

The living Innocence growled. “Of course I do.”

“Really, because if you truly did, I’m surprised you haven’t rescued it. The Heart has been in enemy hands for centuries, why haven’t you saved it from them?”

“Tell me where it is!”

Allen felt Neah laugh as he got to his feet, his body now under better motor control. 

“No.”

* * *

Road sensed Neah as soon as he appeared, all of the Noah did. She licked her lips, she really wanted to kill her bastard lover herself. The right was hers; no one else personally felt the stab of betrayal from 35 years ago. But the Earl was adamant that the one to kill him would be him, just like last time. 

In light of that, she stayed up on top of the building, letting her siblings join the fight before her. Tyki stayed behind with her, standing over her and smoking as she kicked her legs against the brick.

“You usually like violence, why are you sitting around here?”

“Worried about me, Uncle Tyki?”

He blew smoke down into her face, and Road scrunched up her nose in disgust. Not that she really minded. “Not really, just curious. It’s Allen, you love seeing him.”

Road’s Noah was evident in the grin she gave him in answer. “He’s Neah now, and all I want to do to him is to turn him into a pin cushion and break him.” With maybe a break for bedroom play. “I’d kill him if I get close, and then Millinie would be mad at me. “

“Hmm, that’s true.” Tyki turned his face out to look over the city. “But if you’re bored, you can always play with someone else. There’s that German woman.”

Road followed Tyki’s gaze, and sure enough there was Miranda awkwardly running down the street. Away from Central Park where Neah was. Judging by the harried look on her face, she was utterly lost. 

“Oo, that does look like fun.”

* * *

They had been informed by a finder there was a commotion in the park a bit after dawn, and while it had piqued Kanda’s interest it wasn’t something he concerned himself with. 

The orange smoke coming from that direction ten minutes later did.

“What’s going on?” he barked at the finder who originally made the report through his golem. 

“There’s a strange, white beast here that’s attacking a Noah. There’s a red haired male helping the Noah, and someone with glasses-“

“My name’s Johnny.” He sounded groggy, as if he just regained consciousness. 

“Johnny?” Lenalee spoke up from behind Kanda, speaking to the golem. 

“Lenalee?”

“Thank God. You’re with Allen aren’t you? Is he okay?”

“I don’t know. Apocryphos just injured him again. But Lavi’s here now.”

“That stupid rabbit, how did he know to come?”

“Eh-he, he’s actually been helping us from the inside for a few months now.”

“And what are we?” Lenalee fumed, Dark Boots already activated. Kanda ignored her, they had more pressing issues than hurt feelings. 

“The finder said they’re fighting something?”

“Yeah, Apocryphos. A living Innocence that takes the human form of a cardinal with glasses.”

Kanda swore. Walker had been running from that creature before, and if Noah had a hard time fighting it the bean sprout could use all the help he could get. 

A cool wash flowed over his skin, and he turned around to see the clumsy German woman in the doorway, Time Record active. He gave a grunt of thanks, leaving the words to Lenalee, and turned his attention back to the golem in front of him. 

“There’s Noah in the area.”

“Of course, Allen invited them.”

“Why would the stupid bean sprout do that?” Kanda growled. “Che, whatever. We’ll be there soon.”

* * *

Lavi knew of Apocryphos, he had been filled in via Timcampy conversations, and the Noah apparently knew of it too. But it didn’t quite prepare him for what he saw. And he’d seen level fours. 

But while level fours revealed in violence, they weren’t sadistic. One quick flash, and people died. Terrifying, yes, but quick. 

Apocryphos made him realize that while they may be twisted and distorted, level fours had souls. This…monster didn’t. It was purposefully malicious, dealing out damage with the intent to harm, killing in the most painful ways knowing his opponent would regenerate. When he had arrived, it was to find Allen – nope, gold eyes, Neah – standing between an unconscious Johnny and the white creature. Apocryphos kept trying to want to get around Neah to get to Johnny, for no reason other than to get at Neah/Allen. 

So Lavi had fire snaked the Innocence and got Johnny to safe ground, leaving him with a finder hiding in the woods. He came back to find out Apocryphos was a vicious fighter. In the few minutes he was gone, Neah was further covered in blood from wounds that had already healed, and was continuing to fight a loosing battle. Apocryphos would knock him down, and then back up, and go at the Noah again. The attacks were meant to cause pain, and Lavi could tell it was working. 

Though it was hard to tell if this was Apocryphos’s typical fighting style or if Neah was a special case because he seemed to be pissing the Innocence off. 

Lavi watched as Neah did a back hand-spring out of reach, using his right hand because the Innocence in the left had gone wrong and was bent as if Allen had two elbows. 

“You’ve been searching for it for years, and didn’t figure it out? It’s not like he hides it!”

Apocryphos put on a burst of speed to be behind him and stuck his hand through Allen’s chest. The arm was a spiraled mess of feathers, and the sickly ones sprouting from Allen’s Innocences broke off and merged with it.

“WHO?!” Apocryphos yelled, pulling his arm out to allow Neah to fall forward, heal, and catch his breath. 

“Dark hair, Arabic. You know, I was a Noah for only a few years and figured it out, you’ve been searching and protecting from a far for a millennium. Some guardian.”

At which point Apocryphos slashed Allen’s throat and he went down, gurgling on blood while Neah laughed. Lavi suspected Apocryphos was going to finish the battle then and there, and quickly stepped in. 

The hammer to the face didn’t really do much to stop the white creature. He just took a few steps back and stared at Lavi like he was stupid for butting in. Which he probably was, because this thing had destroyed Rhode and was wiping the floor with a General ranked exorcist. Though, granted, Neah didn’t really have control over Allen’s Innocence at the moment. 

Apocryphos responded by backhanding him with all the strength of a furious Kanda punch, and Lavi could tell the Innocence had held back. The bookman hit the ground and rolled away before Apocryphos could kick him in the stomach. 

But he had forgotten how quick the living Innocence was. As he was standing, Lavi felt two hands cover his face, one over each eye. 

“You really shouldn’t be here, Bookman Junior.”

Pain exploded in his head, but it was quickly halted as Apocryphos was pulled backwards by something. Lavi turned to see a tendril from Crown Clown, holey and gray but still strong enough, wrapped around his neck and pulling him back. Neah was still on the ground behind him, hand to his throat. The blood around him was alarming, and even if Neah got back up Lavi was worried about the effects of blood loss. 

“You!” All three of them froze as a new voice cut across the morning. On a path coming from the center of the city, stood Sheryl. He was fuming, skin Noah dark with fists clenched so tightly Lavi thought he saw a drop of blood drip onto the asphalt. 

“You killed my Rhode!”

The Noah launched himself at Apocryphos, who stumbled under the weight. The strand of Crown Clown around his neck crumbled, and Lavi took advantage of Sheryl’s distraction to run around to Neah’s side. 

Neah mouthed something, but it didn’t seem as if his voice box had regenerated yet. But he relaxed a little at seeing Lavi’s face. The red head didn’t know what Neah had expected to see, but it was obvious a lack of it had relieved him. 

“You planned this, didn’t you?” he asked, slinging Neah over his shoulder and than extending his hammer to get them out of the area. He couldn’t go to far, but found a gazebo in the park that he landed gently on. 

Neah was healed enough to answer, of immense relief to Lavi. It was disconcerting, seeing Allen’s body in such a state. “Yes, I planned it. The Noah have been using me and Allen to track Apocryphos, to ask him where the Heart is. It’s useless though; he doesn’t actually know where it is. Just feels it and takes orders from it.”

“Is that what you were talking about?”

“Yeah. I actually know where the Heart is.”

“And?”

“And, Bookman Junior, I’m not telling you either. “

Lavi dumped Neah on the roof. The Noah pouted. 

“It doesn’t matter anyway. I’m planning on destroying it today.”

Lavi clutched his hammer to his chest. It hurt, the idea of loosing it, more than it should. He was glad the old Panda wasn’t here, though he was probably around somewhere watching. 

“Only after the Noah are destroyed, of course.”

Lavi let out his breath. He didn’t believe Allen would have left them defenseless with enemies around, but Neah was a different story. He might.

* * *

The skirmish in Central Park had shifted between the time Kanda talked to Johnny, launched himself out of the hotel window, and arrived. All exorcists in the suite had rushed into action, except for Lotte. Marie was out patrolling the far side of the city, and she went to find him and use her Innocence on him before joining the rest of them. 

They arrived, not to find Walker, Lavi, and Apocryphos, but Apocryphos fighting a mini herd of Noah. There were six of them, but judging by a lone pile of clothes, there used to be seven. 

There was a lot of blood on the ground.

“Johnny!” Lenalee whisper shouted, and Kanda turned to see her land a hundred meters to his left. The finder and scientist were there. Kanda made his way over to them, Crowley too. 

Johnny was filling Lenalee in on what they had missed. 

“The Noah showed up just a few minutes ago, around the time Lavi and the Fourteenth took off.”

“The bean sprout lost?”

“No!” Johnny huffed. “But they’re…merging. Allen’s still winning though. He was terrible against Apocryphos though.”

Kanda could understand that. The white creature looked to be under a lot of pressure at the moment, but that was with three Noah constantly attacking him at once. If it was just the sprout and Lavi against it…

“So what’s the plan?” Crowley asked, surprising Kanda. The older exorcist usually waited to be given orders, not go look for them and actually think.

Kanda opened his mouth, intent on saying something like ‘we fight, you idoit’, but Lenalee stomped on his foot and Kanda had to prevent a grunt of pain from sounding. 

“I’m sure Allen has one. You made it sound like he’s been planning this for a while on the golem earlier Johnny.” Lenalee was staring the scientist down; Kanda assumed she was still miffed about being left out of the Walker loop.

“Yes, but he hasn’t told me everything. Ultimately though, we have to kill every Noah. I think it’d be best if we let these guys battle it out for a little bit. Most of the Noah are here, except Tyki and Rhode, and Allen should be back soon. After he finishes healing. Apocryphos wasn’t exactly gentle.”

Crowley gestured to the bandages around Johnny’s head. “I can see that.”

Kanda jumped up to perch on the branch of a tree next to them. The Noah and Apocryphos were fighting in a clearing, and Kanda didn’t like sitting on the sidelines. But watching the fight, he had to admit it wasn’t one he was too eager to join. Apocryphos was _winning,_ landing more hits than the Noah.

He found himself fascinated with watching the dark skinned humans heal, they were faster at it than him, much faster, but they still bled. The red seemed more vibrant than usual in the golden morning light. Kanda wondered if Walker had bled this much, if Johnny was right and Walker was still in control, what Walker was planning. He didn’t think about if Walker was alright, of course he was if he healed at this rate, but he did think about that stupid rabbit. And how much he wanted to punch him.

Lenalee flew up and landed on a branch belonging to a tree next to his. She was light enough to be away from the trunk, close enough so they could whisper through the leaves. 

“I’m worried.”

Kanda sighed.

“Marie and Miranda haven’t shown up yet.”

Kanda narrowed his eyes, searching the trees. It was true, and as Johnny had said the Dream Girl and Butterfly Boy weren’t fighting.

“They’re fine. That German woman has a good defense.”

Lenalee hummed in answer, but Kanda could tell she wasn’t reassured. He wasn’t either. 

Turning his mind away from things he couldn’t control, he went back to watching the fight. One of the Noah, Sheryl, the one who turned Order members into puppets, was a bit crazy. He was shouting things about his daughter and Apocryphos killing her. Kanda didn’t think Noah even had families, aside from each other, but further listening revealed his daughter was actually Rhode. Sheryl kept throwing himself at the Innocence, coming away cut each time. 

He was also, strangely, the only one to do any serious damage to the white beast. Not that the other Noah weren’t hurting him, but they seemed more like they were trying to corral him and judging by the looks they kept sending Sheryl he wasn’t acting as they thought he should be. 

They didn’t make any moves to stop him from throwing himself at Apocryphos, and Kanda realized because it was pointless. Sheryl would get around them and it wasn’t like he by himself could take the creature on. 

The Noah blitzed Apocryphos from behind, strings attaching to his left leg and snapping it. Apocryphos fell to his knee, twisted at the hip, and thrust both arms - now feather-blades – into the Noah of Desire’s stomach. Sheryl coughed up blood, and when Apocryphos retracted his arms, the Noah didn’t make any move to stop his fall. When he hit the ground he shattered, permanently dead.


	7. Chapter 7

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> And the fighting continues!

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Again, there is a fair bit of violence sprinkled in this chapter.

Neah had no qualms about letting Allen take back his body. 

“Thanks for helping, Lavi.” He rubbed his throat, still feeling the pain of it being slashed and surprised that his voice sounded rough. 

The redhead offered him a hand to help him up and Allen took it. “There isn’t a chance you know where the Heart is and will tell me?”

Allen closed his eyes and tried to sneak into Neah’s mind, but all he got for it was a stab in the brain that caused him to loose his balance. Lavi caught him with a ‘whoa there’. Timcampy, just now catching up to them, pulled on hair on the opposite side of his head in an effort to straight him out. 

“You’re not helping Tim.” The golem’s tail drooped, but he quickly settled himself around Allen’s neck in an apology. 

“I’ll take that as meaning Neah’s hiding the information from you.” Lavi stated. 

“Yeah, bloody git.” Lavi snicked at Allen’s language. “But I don’t think it’s nearby, otherwise he’d want to get it.”

Allen sighed and moved his right hand to his hip. “I’m hoping Apocryphos takes care of a few Noah, and while he’s probably the most dangerous fighter in the city I’m concerned about the lack of akuma attacks. I mean, they’re here in the city.”

“Maybe not enough to aid the Noah?”

Allen activated his eye. The sudden lack of color didn’t phase him, but he felt Lavi twitch a bit at the suddenness of it. 

“It still amazes me how you deal with seeing this all the time.”

“Years of experience with it, for one. And not really having a choice to not see it.” Allen turned in a circle. Assuming that Kanda, Lenalee, Crowley, and Miranda had come (they were the closest to him after all) and taking into account their levels, it would take an akuma force of about 500 level ones to take them down. Especially with Noah also in the city. 

There at least 150 in the distance his eye could cover. And compared to the city limits of New York, Allen’s eye was only seeing a small part of the metropolis. The likelihood of there being more than necessary to kill the exorcists _(but you of course, since you have a Noah in your head)_ was very high. They had experience and powerful weapons, but they were human too. They tired, and couldn’t block attacks from every angle at once. 

Lavi seemed to come to a similar conclusion. “They could kill us right now, why aren’t the akuma attacking?”

Allen shrugged. “I know Rhode would rather fight me than watch akuma do it. And maybe setting them loose would get in their way of fighting Apocryphos. Actually, it’d probably be better at killing akuma than us. Regardless, we can’t allow them to join the battle. It’d be like Japan and we barely escaped that. If I call them here, think you can destroy them all?”

“Allen, you know they can take on all of us. And you want me to face them by myself?”

Allen deactivated his eye and pulled up his Noah powers. “I’ll be singing, so don’t worry. They won’t be able to move.”

* * *

The Noah had backed off when Sheryl died, forming a circle around Apocryphos. From his position in the tree, Kanda watched the large panther switch back into Lulubell’s human form. She took a step forward and Apocryphos turned towards her. Behind his back one of the Noah Kanda didn’t know, the one wearing what looked like a stripped bed sheet, started doing something with his hands. 

“Aprocyophos, we are willing to let you live if you tell us the location of the Heart.” Lulubell said. 

Kanda tensed, and turned his head to look at Lenalee. It was an unspoken theory that the Dark Boots was the Heart, and if that was the truth, Walker be damned he was getting her out of here. He looked down to gage the others' reactions; Crowley and Johnny weren’t paying him any attention, and Marie and Lotte weren’t there yet. 

Scratch that. Kanda caught a glimpse of an exorcist uniform on the other side of the clearing.

“Let me absorb Allen Walker first, and then I will tell you.”

“You mean the Fourteenth. And surly that would kill him.”

Apocryphos grinned. “They are one and the same at this point, wouldn’t you agree? But what do you care about the death of a traitor?”

Lulubell kept her face blank and didn’t answer.

“Didn’t the Earl want the Fourteenth alive though?” Kanda turned his attention to the twins. The blonde one was playing with his headband while the other spun the magazine of his gun. The exorcist wasn’t to sure who spoke, until the brunette spoke again. “I mean, he did say protect him at the cost of our lives. Didn’t Rhode turn to dust that way? Saving that brat when Apocryphos attacked him at the Order.”

Kanda heard Lenalee’s sharp intake of breath, and his own hand tightened its grip on the tree bark. 

“I think I know why your Earl values a traitor’s life more than yours, he knows the location of the Heart. Information that I also require.”

The brunette twin spoke again. “But, don’t you take orders from it or something?”

“Yeah, you’re supposed to protect it!” the blonde one said. 

“The Fourteenth is a threat to the Heart. And surely the Earl would appreciate knowing where it is more than having the Fourteenth by his side. I have a connection to Allen Walker’s Innocence, I can find him anywhere. I’ll lead you to him, we get him to tell us the location of the Heart, and in exchange you’ll let me get rid of Allen Walker and the Fourteenth. And then things will be as they are now, a race to see who can get their first.” Apocryphos didn’t seem happy with the preposition, if the irritated glare he leveled at Lulubell said anything. 

Lulubell was unfazed, and Kanda found himself maybe liking this Noah a little bit. Except for the fact that she was a Noah. And was talking about aiding in the murder of the beansprout. 

“It would have to be a decision agreed upon by all Noah.”

“If that's the case, there would be no deal. Tyki and Rhode are sure to say no.”

Judging by what Kanda had seen before, he was inclined to agree. Rhode at the very least was too fond of Walker to allow anything to happen to him other than join the family. And now that those two were on his mind, he was very concerned about where they were.

The Noah who covered his face spoke. “I would vote no too. We are connected to the Fourteenth just as you are connected to Allen Walker's Innocence. We will find him ourselves, present him to the Earl, and he will get the information about the Heart.”

Apocryphos snarled and moved into a power position, legs apart and knees bent. “Not if I find him first.”

He made to jump, but only a few inched off the ground was pulled back by Marie's cords. The white monster snarled and snatched a handful of them. Kanda felt foreboding shoot up his spine, an image of Walker's twisted and feathered arm in the alley came to the front of his mind. He had a suspicion that this creature was the cause of it, and shouted into his golem. “Don't let him touch your Innocence for long! He'll corrupt it!” 

Marie complied, the cords in Apocryphos's hand went limp as he cut them off from the main body of his Innocence. 

Lenelee had already flown into action, dealing a roundhouse kick to the Noah who had last spoken and Crowley was chomping on one of the twins arms. 

Lulubell made to leave the park, but Kanda cut her off. “You're not going anywhere,” he growled as he pulled Mugen out. He activated it, its usual blue glow now purple since it had evolved to a crystal type. 

She lashed out with a whip and he dodged, rolling forward and coming up with the intention of shoving Mugen up under her chin and through her head. She had back peddled though, and it was only luck that had Mugen slice off a hand. Lulubell licked the blood running down her forearm like a cat while the hand regrew. 

Johnny was sounding from his golem. “Apocryphos is stronger than most of the Noah, Allen was hopping that he could kill some of them before it came our turn to fight. He did get two, so that's helpful. See if you can help him get more, Allen's plan needs all of the Noah dead before he can properly confront the Earl.”

Really, who did the scientist think he was, giving orders? And Walker, for making a plan and not telling them what was going on? When he got his hands on the brat, he'd give him such a beating he'd be bruised for ten years. 

Pride miffed, Kanda threw in his own orders too as he dodged Lulubell in panther form. “Try to keep them in the park if possible, to give Walker time.” Time for what? He had no clue. But it made him sound like he had information the others didn't. 

The bitch in front of him changed forms again, switching back to human and managed to wrap her whip around his arm. The leather bit into his skin and Kanda cut the weapon in two. The end of the whip fell off and he felt his arm heal due to Lotte's Time Recovery, it tingled like his own healing didn't. 

He managed a quick glance around. Crowley was fighting one on one what reports told him was the combined form of the twins. Lenelee and Marie were tag teaming the other two Noah and Apocryphos at once. She would attack the Innocence, and then dodge an attack only to have it hit one of the two Noah dragged there by Marie's power. Before long, it would most likely turn into a four on one, all of them attacking Apocryphos to some extent and trying to push the other team into danger. Marie was still hiding in the trees, but Kanda was confident that Lenelee could take care of herself. Maybe Marie could get free and help the Vampire. 

Kanda's look around the battle field took his attention off of Lulubell. He missed her transition to a dragon until she breathed fire down on him. He cursed and rolled, putting out the flames in his hair, but the damage was already gone. The last foot was crisped. 

He saw red. What was the saying about dragons? There was a weak spot right above the heart, where the scales were thinner and weaker than normal? He lept upward.

* * *

It was way too easy, Lavi thought. Usually killing akuma had a sense of challenge to it, a thrill in his veins. But like this, with Neah singing them to stillness, he felt as if he was slaughtering children in the cradle. They did nothing to defend themselves, didn't even scream in death, and he was reminded that akuma ultimately were slaved souls who wanted no part in the war. 

Neah had deactivate Allen's eye, but Lavi could still see the souls trapped in the demons. Mothers, fathers, children in the level ones, faces gaunt and skeletal. The wrapped mummies of level twos. The ghost like forms with uber bright eyes for level threes. And the three level fours they had found, souls nothing but free floating black dots. 

An akuma exploded to his left, Neah was managing to send out projectiles from Allen's wings while he sang, and Lavi imagined each soul taking on the appearance of it's original self as he killed it. He had seen it happen before when battling beside Allen, but that vision was lost to him. He almost wished for it, to remind him he was helping the akuma, not mercilessly killing things unable to fight back. 

Usually he thought of akuma as monsters to kill before they could do the same, knowing that Allen pitied them but not understanding it. This though, almost made him understand. The blank faces of the ten he just burned were as slack as a sleeping infant, and he could imagine the souls too easily. 

Lavi landed next to Neah lightly, not even out of breath after taking out over a hundred still akuma. He watched as the gold eyes faded and it was Allen standing beside him. 

“Is that it?”

Allen nodded. “I think so, we've been all over the city. This way, we shouldn't be taken unware by a hoard of akuma and the Noah will stumble when they call them and receive no answer.”

He turned and faced towards Central Park. “We should help them.”

“If what Johnny said is true, as soon as you step foot there you'll have six Noah and Apcroyphos on you. You can't handle those odds.”

“And the others can?”

Lavi shrugged. “No,” he said, frank as ever, “but knowing Kanda he'll relish a good fight and it sounds like they not really fighting as much as provoking Apcroyphos and making sure the Noah get the blunt of it. Our friends are strong fighters, and smart.”

“As friends, we should be helping.” 

Lavi had nothing more to say. There were no more akuma to keep Allen busy, and deep inside what he wanted most right now was to keep Allen safe. He had a bad feeling about Neah's plan, which neither the Noah or Allen had divulged in full. But there wasn't any good reason to keep Allen away from Central Park. 

There was a scream in the streets. They were close to the park, having done a full circle around the city, and most citizens had fled this part. Who was stupid enough to stay in an area near to where demons where fighting?

Those who fight them.

Allen was already a roof ahead of him, wings flapping and heading towards the sound, away from the park. For that little luck, Lavi was thankful. But only a little bit. He recognized the voice who screamed, and figured the next fight would not be as easy as killing motionless akuma. 

Was it bad he was looking forward to it?

##

What Allen saw had him drop from the sky and land on the roof on all fours. Lavi was a there a few seconds later, his hammer not fast enough to match Gabriel's speeds. 

“What?” he asked, leaning to look down onto the street with Allen. 

Down below was Miranda Lotte, body splayed on the street. Rhode was pounding a candle into her palm, but Miranda wasn't even twitching at the violence. She couldn't, for she was already dead. Allen couldn't see the wound that killed here, but her eyes were staring to the side and there was blood leaking from her mouth. Tyki stood watching Rhode, it was quite possible the female exorcist's wounds were internal. 

As if on cue, both Noah looked up at them and grinned, stigmata bold on their foreheads. 

“Which one do you want?” Lavi asked.

“I...I...”

“Allen, they're not just going to stare all day!”

“I don't think I can take either of them,” he confessed. “Rhode and Neah were lovers, and I can't separate his feelings for her from my own. He couldn't kill her last time and still doesn't want too. I don't think I do it either. And Tyki, Tyki is Neah's biological son, my cousin. I don't know if I could hurt him.”

“Well, they'll certainty kill you!”

Lavi looked over the edge again. “Shit, they're running up the wall!”

And Allen felt a shove and his lips move of their own accord. “I'll take Tyki.”

Lavi looked back at him. “You're a right bastard, you know that Neah? Going to kill your own son. Killing a lover would almost be better.”

“Yes, well, I had hoped the Order would have taken care of both of them but that didn't happen did it?”

Allen wondered if this was a time where he would prefer not witness the action, but his thoughts at Wisely's death were the same. If he let Neah have full control that way, there was no telling what he would do. Then again, he was going to be dead before dawn so what did it matter. He closed his eyes, just as the two Noah busted onto the roof, and surrendered to Neah. 

_Wake me when the fight is over,_ he told his uncle. 

He didn't get a response.

* * *

 _One down, four to go,_ Kanda thought as he heard a death scream. The creepy looking Noah who seemed to have come control of magic fell to the ground, chest ripped open. Another Noah dead by Apocryphos's hands. That made three so far now, how in the world had Walker survived this long?

Running was the obvious answer. Which was exactly what he was doing. 

Fighting Skin Bolic had been a straight up match of power and endurance, but Lulubell was different. She was crafty, changing forms on the fly so Kanda never knew what to expect. Bolic's attacks had been direct, hers came from the side, underground, and above. It was shear luck he had managed to stay away from most of the lethal hits. As it was, if it had been anyone else fighting her, they would have died at least three times. 

She was in her dragon form again, he had found it's weakness but it was only useful when they were in close quarters. At a range, she had the advantage. A lashing tail and the ability to fire off long range attacks. Lulubell had traded the fire breath for acid. 

Kanda turned to launch a first illusion attack at her, his insects darting towards her chest. Lulubell swept them aside with a wing and watching that he failed to keep on eye on her tail. It knocked him over and in order to avoid a direct hit of acid he fell to the ground. There was a scream behind him as Apocryphos took the hit. Fancy that, he hadn't even planned it. 

Kanda wasn't uninjured though, a few drops of acid had burned through the back of his robe and through his skin. He could feel the painful process of it eating all the way through him to the dirt below, but he had long ago gotten used to pain. What set alarm bells going off was the lack of tingling. He had healed himself, not Lotte. 

While Apocryphos had a small bout with Lulubell and the afro Noah whose name he didn't catch, but knew was of Pity, Kanda darted to Lenalee. 

She was in bad shape, and it surprised him to see that her Dark Boots were not the smooth crystal he remembered. The butterflies on the heels were wrinkled and feathered and small little wings sprouted from the top of the boots. There was a cut above her left eye, and he knew she knew something had happened to Lotte too. 

He didn't bring up the subject, but looked pointedly at her Innocence. 

“He...does something. Every time I touch him with my Boots it effects my Innocence. It built slowly, but my Boots want to be with him. They are willing enough to attack, but when I try to flip away, they don't respond as well. Even if it's for half a second, I can feel them lingering to stay in contact with him.”

If Kanda was facing any other opponent, he would have switched. But Lulubell would kill her eventually. “Switch with the Vampire.”

They both looked to the other battle. It was personal, and not just about Allen. The black and white freak looked frustrated, and while Crowley's body was lying still at the edge of the woods there was a fierce red creature that looked like him, minus the addition of wings, fighting.

“Is that...blood?”

Lenalee nodded. “It's an Innocence trait he has. His consciousness leaves his body and inhabits his blood and any nearby. While it leaves his real body undefended, his blood one has higher defense and mobility. Attack's higher too. Of course, last time he fought with it he slipped into a coma. He's been training though, didn't you know? He developed the power during that one time on the Ark.”

Kanda didn't pay attention to anyone's training but his own. Okay, he used to know the beansprout's, and the rabbit's too, so he knew when to challenge them to a spar. He hadn't had a proper one since he returned to the Order. 

They watched blood Crowley roar, speech seemed forgotten, and the twins stumbled. Kanda could see Marie's harp cords, it was good they were working together.

“There's no way I'll be able to switch with him. Don't worry though,” Lenalee placed an hand on him shoulder, “I'll be careful.”

He gave her a look that said she'd better, and then turned to face the opponents they had abandoned for bit. Apocryphos had thrown the afro Noah into a tree, his large body snapping through the trunk, and seeing no exorcist in sight, he turned to run toward the city.

There was a heavy breeze as Lenalee left Kanda's side to suddenly appear behind the Noah and kick him back into the fight, straight into Lulubell who was currently a creature of water. 

Kanda called on Mugen, split it, and thrust into Lulu Bell using the power of his third illusion to essentially electrocute her. She screamed and Kanda had never heard such a pleasant sound.

* * *

He should not have hesitated. As soon as Allen had glimpsed Tyki and Road down below Neah should have taken over and started singing. Because sadly, that was his best power. He knew magic, but he couldn't recite an enchantment and sing at the same time. Singing, with Dark Matter to boost it, was the more immediate attack. But Road had candles and could trap you in other dimensions, Tyki had Tease and could put his hand through his chest. 

Well, Timcampy, as ferocious an eater as he was, wasn't much for Tease. Sure, he had blown himself up and eaten a lot of the other golem. But the ones who survived ate through him and Tim fell as pieces of yellow rock. He would pull himself together after a minute or two, but it was obvious Tease had better offensive capabilities. 

Neah tried to sing, but Tyki wasn't giving him much time. Noah were harder to influence than akuma, he needed time and the ability to concentrate. All Neah was able to do at the moment was get his son to hesitate from time to time, enough time to get in a slash with Crown Clown or a few arrows with Truth's Spear. 

None of it was enough to do much damage. He had to kill Tyki enough times to make regenerating not worth the effort, he had maybe managed one death. He had suffered three. 

Neah looked down to Lavi, but he wasn't getting much help from that department. Rhode had trapped the redhead in an internal dimension, something he knew she had tried on him before from Allen's memories. Lavi had won then, but he hoped the outcome would be different this time. He didn't want her form in this world to disappear, that would make it hard for him to...to...kill her later. 

He should have told Lavi the secret to killing her before this battle started. 

Tease flew at him and he swirled Crown Clown around him to use a shield. The golem bounced off, but there was a hand on his ankle and he looked down to see Tyki. He flapped and went higher, their aerial battle wasn't giving him the advantage he hopped for since Tyki could stand on air, but he was more maneuverable and faster. He left his foot in Tyki's hand though and launched feather arrows at him while it regrew. 

He hated to admit it, but he was at a disadvantage in this battle. Allen would have a better chance, seeing as how he could use the Innocences to their full extent. His current attacks lacked the power that Allen's had, and if he couldn't sing what was the point of   
being in control?

Neah dodged Tyki's hand and thrust his Innocence induced arm through Tyki's chest. It went right through and the other Noah coughed up blood. He pulled out, tossing Tyki's heart over his left shoulder, and flew away before Tyki could regenerate and counterattack. Death two. 

But Allen knew who Tyki was, and family was important to him. He wouldn't be able to do what was necessary. 

It was funny, but he actually wished Apocryphos was nearby so he could sic him on Tyki. The Innocence had a better chance of winning.

* * *

He expected Rhode to take him somewhere new, but the black space with ankle deep water was the same as he remembered. He had visited the space more than once in his dreams and relived the battle. But it was just a battle, and his dreams were things he used to analyze his choice. Be a Bookman, or Lavi the Exorcist.

To be honest, he hadn't actually made a choice that fight, he had been forced to make a decision and in the end chose the third option to kill Rhode and push off choosing one personality over the other. His dreams allowed him to observe his feelings and deeper emotions, and had ultimately helped make his choice. He wouldn't be pressured and over powered this time. 

Lavi said as much out loud. “We did this already Rhode. It didn't work.”

Allen walked up to him, the old Allen before he found out he was the Fourteenth. He was dressed in his usual attire: black slacks, crisp white shirt, black vest, and red ribbon around his neck. Lavi knew it was Rhode, she had taken Allen's form last time too, but the image still struck him still. This was the Allen he liked to remember, the Allen he wished for. One free of burdens, who always had a full belly, who had yet to hide behind smiles, and who didn't face death everyday. The kid who was learning to be warrior exorcist and looked out for stray kids.

It almost hurt, seeing what his friend had lost.

Allen, no, Rhode, cocked her head and smiled. It reminded Lavi of the one Allen usually gave Timcampy, the smile of a bond, of friendly knowing. Rhode had no reason to be giving him such a smile. 

“I know. This isn't your heart though. It's mine.”

The smell assaulted him them. He wasn't standing in water, but blood. And the smell of something rotting came from every corner. 

“How is being in your mind going to harm me?”

She giggled, and Allen changed shape. He became taller and his hair wavier, darker. His skin darkened too, to that of a Latino color. His clothes didn't change much however; the vest and ribbon disappeared but the shirt and pants stayed. While his eyes were a soft doe brown instead of gold, Lavi knew this to be Neah as Rhode remembered him. The Neah of 35 years ago. 

“Last time I sought to kill your heart, make you emotionless. Now I hope to kill your mind, to break it. I heard you've held 49 personalities. Were each very different, or just slightly so? Where they people you pretended to be, as if you were an actor?”

He frowned, not liking the situation and confused by it. “Most were...variations. Based on facets of my original personality or on people I met on the road. Very superficial, and many were similar yes.”

“But were you an actor?”

He closed his eyes. There was a reason he was calling himself Lavi, not just responding to the name. “Most,” he whispered. 

Neah/Rhode grinned, as if expecting that answer. “And how troublesome has it been for you?”

“Not too bad actually, I'm a good actor.” He looked her in the face and placed his hand where his hammer usually sat. Innocence didn't exist here, but even if he was inside her mind he should be able to will something into existence to reside there eventually. Mind over matter, will power, and all that. 

Hopefully. It might not work as well in her space has it had worked in his heart. 

“Do you think you can look into the mind of a Noah?” As Rhode spoke, she shifted back into her current self and Lavi was aware of figures appearing on the fringes of his image. “I have had sixty seven lives, each with their own histories, their own lifetime of memories. I am aware of all of them, as separate entities and as a part of me.” Her face ripped open, her teeth daggers and stretching from ear to ear. “I am a Noah, I was born to handle all the voices and images, and yet compared to some humans of the day I could be considered a bit crazy. What would a mind like yours do when faced with so much information?”

Overload. Break. 

Rhode shifted again, this time into a long string of glowing black light that stood ten feet tall. She couldn't seem to stand straight, her body kept undulating back and forth as if to keep her balanced. Perched above her head, but not on it, was a crown that seemed to be there one moment and gone the next, changing shape as it did so. 

“I am Road, The Ninth Noah and Keeper of Noah's Dreams with the Power of Dimensions. And today, Derek Bolcokic, you die.”

Lavi didn't have time to figure out how she knew his original name, one of her reincarnations touched his arm and he was standing by himself on a rock, over looking the sandy plains for miles around. He was just a regular sheep farmer, the only one for miles around but his pregnant wife at home. And then he was holding his child, naming him Caleb, and then he was holding his dead child for drought had left no food for him and his sheep. It was as he lay dying, his wife nursing him, that the Noah genes activated. He killed his wife trying to escape the pain. 

He was in Rome, a foot solider in the army for three years. Then a gladiator, watching his best friend get mauled by a bear. A girl child sold to the brothel because her mother couldn't feed her. Alexender the Great's gay lover, Cleopatra's mother, a Viking raiding Norway, a Native American watching a large wooden canoe powered by the wind land on his shores, a farmer's wife, a merchant's daughter, Judas, a baker, a seamstress, a hand maiden, a knight.

They made Lavi live the first life in whole, from the moment he was over looking his sheep till the day he died as a Noah at the Earl's hand. The lives after that were given to him in flashes, and each time he was released he found himself floating on his back in blood with faces all around him. 

He had to get it to stop! He could handle a lot of information, a photographic memory alone was capable of that but being a Bookman had enhanced his mind. But this was not simply information, it was emotions, the new thing he was still trying to balance correctly. Each memory was filled with it and it sent his head swimming, the emotions overlapping to the point where he couldn't tell most of them apart and he felt them growing heavier and heavier. He couldn't figure them out, his failure depressed him, and the horrific memories, right now he was a child of 12 left to her uncle's care but he was currently inside her room, inside her, depressed him even more. He was drowning, thinking only bad thoughts and every time he tried to find a happier one Road gave him a memory of a similar situation with a negative tinge.

Eventually he was literally drowning, he was the Roman solider again, during a battle, blood on his lips from a blow to his head, and he sputtered under the weight of the emotions of fear and worry and the smell of death to find he was no longer floating in blood, but the reincarnations were pushing him down and blood was rushing into his mouth instead of air and he tried to cough it up but couldn't, his death was coming, but Allen needed his help, he had to help Allen, had to kill Rhode, but how could he when he was dying of fever, being whipped by his owner, on trial for murder?

Road laughed, and the hands let up. “I will not drown you Derek, you will do that yourself. The more you are overwhelmed by your emotions, the heavier my hands will feel, until you drown in emotions, your mind too filled with them to even begin to comprehend, and all thoughts of your friends forgotten as you fail to understand who you are under so many memories.”

She showed him happy moments then. A first sale, a marriage, a promotion, a child, a favor from the queen. They came faster than the other set, and seemed to flow into another until he couldn't tell where one person began and another ended. He was excited, enthusiastic, proud, honored, welcomed. But his head was beginning to ache, it was too much to handle. Road had said something, something about friends...and forgetting...

He was a woman, curled into her husband as he read her a scary story, love and contentedness enveloping her, and the villain sounded familiar, like...like...Crow-chan.

Lavi sputtered again, so deep in the blood that when he opened his eyes he saw the faces above him in a red light. He sat up, breathing heavy, and turned his head to look upward at Road. “You, you won't win,” he panted. 

She laughed, and he was with Alexander again, watching him groom his horse, watching him slice a man in two, watching him undress.

But Lavi had an idea now. Emotions he couldn't handle, but information was an old friend and he had practice over the years at pushing emotions aside. It was hard to do so, the people he was in the memories had no such training, but he did his best. There was no one better to learn about Alexander the Great than his lover, nor Cleopatra her mother, or Jesus Judas. Even within ordinary people he could understand new things about the time, Road's first reincarnation was shortly after the flood. What Bookman had information about such times?

It was hard, he still got lost in the really strong emotions, but he was aware of more gaps between the lives he saw, saw Road's reincarnations above him more often. Slowly, so as not to arose suspicion, every time he was aware enough in her world he would push against the floor and float nearer to her. 

He was making a dress (so that was the style in 300), bedding a man (ooh, a tip for next time), responding to the call of his lord's banners (remember what house went with each signal), running from muggers at night (now he knew the layout of Aksum). But most of all, he was almost at Road's feet. Um, well maybe root was more likely because instead of feet she was anchored in the ground by three claws, each the length of his body. 

Discreetly, he brushed his Innocence holder. No dagger had appeared. But there was the knight near his right hand, and Lavi knew he liked to keep a small knife in his boot just in case. 

He slowly lifted his hand, trying to concentrate on it even as he was on a ship manning the oars, and when he came back to his hand was hovering just above the knight's boot. A quick strike had done the trick last time, would it work again?

Quickly, his hand slipped in an grabbed the knife. The knight felt it, thus so did Road, but he was too quick. He stabbed the root closest to him and Road shrieked in agony. The reincarnations disappeared, and all that was left was Road, bent over in pain. 

“How dare you!” She hissed. 

“Easily. You forget that I'm a Bookman, and that makes me special.” He grinned, and plunged the knife into her again, her body this time. Road collapsed into the blood, the splash getting some in Lavi's mouth and soaking his clothes. 

He was surprised at her lack of fight, but even in his own mind she couldn't do much to hurt him. Lavi realized that only in the physical world could she launch physical attacks, here in the internal one she could only attack the mind and heart. Well, she had already done so and lost. 

Lavi lost count of how many time he stabbed her. Once for what she did to him on the Ark, one for each scar on Miranda's palms, one for Allen's eye, one for paralyzing Lenalee, one for trapping her and Choaji. He lost count, but kept stabbing until the screaming and wiggling stopped. 

Heaving, he dropped the knife and fell backwards into the blood at his feet. He had seen people kill in a fury and found it stupid and unnecessary, a surrender to emotions. And here he was, indulging in the same thing. He brought trembling hands up to his face and buried his head into them, ignoring the blood running down his fingers. 

The lives, the emotions, there were still there. He would never be able to forget them, not with his memory, and he could feel the laughter and tears on the edge. Twice he had almost drowned, in sorrow, in happiness, and both of blood. It was okay now, he had set up a wall on his mind, but he could feel those 67 lives knocking on the other side, their knuckles turning bloody in an effort to be acknowledged. 

How had Road dealt with it? Or the other Noah? Allen?

He recalled the conversation they had in Oklahoma City, how Allen had mentioned that when he thought of Mana, of Timcampy, it wasn't his memories that came first. Of how Johnny told him of the times Allen seemed to know a place, even though Johnny knew for a fact Allen had never been sent there on a mission or had visited with Cross. 

What had he said, that he wasn't sure who had killed Hevlaska, him or Neah?

_He's breaking. Has been this whole time._

Lavi was stupid. He had told Allen to fight, that he and the Fourteenth were different, all too little and too late. Allen had probably started loosing shortly after he left the Order, for all his talk of fighting. He and Neah were the same person now, merged, for Allen didn't have the skills of a Bookman, he couldn’t resist. No, that wasn't quite right. Road's reincarnations were full people, but were less than the whole of Road, only a part. Allen wasn't merging with Neah, he was being absorbed.

He had to get back. 

As if that was the cue, the room changed. The smell of decay vanished, the blood turned to water, and then evaporated. There were cobblestones underneath his feet, buildings to either side, the sun above, and...and Tyki Mikk diving right at him. 

“Rhode!” He screamed, two giant Tease in his hand. 

Lavi looked behind him, Road in her true form was lying on the pavement, covered in wounds and bleeding. As he watched, she faded away, the crown clattering to the ground before turning to dust. 

Tyki landed on his back. 

Lavi felt a golem eat into his shoulder muscle before swinging up his hammer and knocking the Noah off. Tyki was crying, black tears running down his face. “You killed her, really killed her this time.”

He swung at him, hand pointed, but something in Lavi clicked. He remembered so many fights from so many people, he couldn't tell from whom he learned the move, the knight, the roman solider, Alexander, the Viking, but suddenly Lavi knew just how to push Tyki's arm out of the way and twist it behind his back. He heard the shoulder pop out of it's socket. 

The sound of music filled the air and Tyki went stiff, eyes shooting to the sky in horror. Lavi did the same and found Neah in the air above them. Only then did he realize Neah had started humming when Tyki had attacked Lavi, and was now out right singing scat notes, but it quickly changed to a hymm to the Virgin Mary praising her holiness. 

Lavi knew the song, it was uplifting and peaceful. But this rendition was anything but. It was ironic, filled with thoughts of how Mary's holiness was overrated, how it was all a lie that needed to be stopped at any cost from spreading. Lavi frowned, not understanding why Neah would sing it like that, but understood when Tyki coughed and collapsed into the street. 

The red head dropped him. Tease had eaten a hole through Tyki's own heart, and before it could fully heal Tyki had ordered the golem to do it again. Lavi turned away from the sight, he watched Neah instead. The demon in his friend's body was slowing descending, eyes only for Tyki and crying blood. After Neah landed, Tease ate through Tyki's heart one more time, 13 Lavi counted by the sounds, and Tyki Mikk finally collapsed and died. 

Neah stood staring at Tyki, but Lavi continued to watch Neah's face. He was crying yes, but he didn't look sad. 

“Are you crying for your dead son, or because it was your hand who killed him?”

Neah's head snapped up, and there was hatred on his face that Lavi hoped to never see on Allen's. 

“Neither. Noah genes react to the death of one of their own. These tears are not something I shed willingly.”

But somehow, Lavi doubted that. 

“The fight's done, bring back Allen.”

“I can't, he's sleeping.” Neah grinned that Noah grin and Lavi cursed himself. He had promised to help Allen and hadn't even realized how badly his friend needed it, had dismissed Allen's concerns. Him and Johnny both. And now that he knew, he couldn't.

* * *

He was covered in his own blood, both of the dried variety and newly spilled, by the time the beansprout finally showed up. Kanda was going to snap at him about being late; Pity had died too, Lulubell was keeping Apocryphos busy and inside the park, and the twins were on their last legs after fighting three exorcists. It used to be four, but Lenalee's Dark Boots had eventually succumbed to Apocryphos and no longer worked correctly. She was in the woods with Johnny, legs covered in wings. 

But when he turned to look at the brat, he realized the past month had changed Walker drasticly. He strode into the clearing through a gate, and the white glow it gave off showed off his new tan.

When Walker had attacked the Order a month ago, his eyes had been golden and his skin a light ash color of an ill person. But there was hope, for Walker was still inside and aware enough, strong enough to invite Kanda here. Now, now he wasn't sickly looking but the out right gray of charcoal. His white hair was black and curly, stigmata peaking out behind the bangs, and his eyes were a solid gold. The left was still covered in the curly tendriled curse mark. 

Kanda did not expect them to return to silver any time soon. 

Marie gasped behind him and whimpered Lotte's first name. It was only then that Kanda noticed the Fourteenth's companion. Downtrodden, with eyes on his feet and hair strangely limp, came Lavi Bookman. And in his arms, left arm dangling, was Miranda Lotte. Dead. 

All fighting stopped to stare at the new arrivals. 

“Have you finally joined us, brother?” Lulubell asked. Apocryphos looked furious, Johnny had said something about him wanting Allen instead of the Fourteenth. 

The Fourteenth turned his eyes to Lulubell and smiled. Kanda tightened his grip on Mugen. Orders were to kill Walker if he lost to Fourteenth, but he couldn't bring himself to move. While it was a far off hope, he prayed that this was Walker parading as the Fourteenth. Or maybe fighting for control even now and would win it any second. 

“I brought gifts,” the fake Walker said and Lulubell turned her eyes to Lavi and Lotte. Lavi didn't return the look, he was scanning the battle field for something but couldn't seem to find it. 

“Timcampy.” The golem came flying from behind the Fourteenth, swelling as he flew toward the other Noah till he went from the size of a pocket watch to a head. He spat out two things, a candle and a weakly flapping Tease. 

“You!” Lulubell screamed, launching towards him. Jasdevi attacked too, he heard Marie's cry of pain and turned to deal with the threat behind him. How stupid to turn his back!

Marie was on the ground, trying to put out the fire the bullet had started on his thigh. Kanda went left and low, Crowley in all his bloody glory fell onto Jesdevi directly from above. Mugen punctured the Noah's stomach, Crowley's fangs the Noah's jugular. Two deaths at once, after a succession of many others. But still the stupid Noah wouldn't die!

There was a flurry of white and the Fourteenth went flying back, Apocryphos following him on quick feet. They crashed into a tree, the white creature pinning Walker's body to a tree with his spiraled hands. The Fourteenth leaned down to whisper something in his ear, the living Innocence growled and thrust deeper. The Noah pulled to the side, ripping his torso apart in the process, Kanda winced in sympathy, and dashed into the woods. Apocryphos followed. 

Kanda dodged a hair lance and set Hell Insects out to cut off various strands while he avoided more. Crowley went in for another bite, but was blasted away with a punch. While trying to sneak behind the double Noah, Kanda watched the Fourteenth reemerge. His right leg was a skeleton, but as he took another step the muscle and skin grew back. Of Apocryphos, there was no sign. 

“Johnny! Lenalee!” 

Kanda whirled around at Lavi's shout. Behind him, a black Ark gate had appeared on the clearing's edge. In the doorway stood the Earl, beside him Lulubell. Approaching the gate was a small red headed woman, Johnny and Lenalee wrapped in chains behind her. Lenalee's legs were still feathered, but as Kanda watched they seemed to shrink. Good, she could fight soon.

The familiar high pitched noise of Walker's cursed eye had him hope that the beansprout had gained control, but when Kanda looked at him all he saw was Noah. A confused Noah.

The world drained of color and Kanda blinked, expecting it to come back but it didn't. Walker's eye was able to see akuma souls, and he remembered Lavi talking about sharing the sight with Walker once. “The color was just...gone. Every thing was black and white, and coming from the akuma was this black cloud, inside of which was this white mummified woman. I...she...” Words had failed the Bookman at that point, but Kanda couldn't figure out why. He figured he was looking at the world like Walker did, and there was the black cloud above the woman, so she was obviously an akuma, but there was no white woman.

“No soul,” the Fourteenth said in whisper. “You finally managed to create a level five, your surrogate Eve.” 

Kanda was officially lost.

Johnny tried to twist to get a better look at the woman, but the akuma stopped him and Lavi was studying her intently too. 

Color came back into the world just as sudden as it disappeared, leaving Kanda blinking at the change. The eye had deactivated. 

“Is she everything you expected?” The Fourteenth continued. “Warm in your bed, resistant to temptation, the perfect woman?”

The woman snarled. “I'm my own akuma. I don't warm anyone's bed.”

Personality?

“She's devoured her original soul, but her experiences have given her person-hood. And it seems she's not fond of you Adam. You haven't answered my question yet. Is she what you expected? Have you proven God was at fault? Or have you realized what Eve did long ago, that we were born with 'flaws' that enable us to be our own person?”

And the Earl...snarled. Not a human snarl. Veins popped in his face and his jaw grew, so the face he had was that of a wolf, all sharp teeth. Just as quickly, the snout faded, but the Earl's face still was full of raised blood vessels and anger. 

“She is perfect,” he spat out. 

“Careful Adam, your age is showing.” And as the Fourteenth said that, Kanda could see the skin sagging on his neck and wrinkles around his eyes. The Fourteenth hummed a few bars of a song, and the Earl seemed to sag in relief, the signs of age receding.

“Come join us again Neah. I love you dearly, and surely you remember the love we had as a family.” He opened his arms in forgiveness.

“I remember God's dream, Mana's dead wife, and your sword in my belly.”

The Earl dropped his arms to his side and snapped, “I will gladly put it there again.”

“I'm looking forward to it. It's the sword I've come to take.”

The Earl narrowed his eyes. “No one may wield it but me. You know this.”

The Fourteenth laughed. “You mean no one else is allowed to touch it. But there is a reason this boy, me, has a sword that is a twin of yours.”

Was it Kanda, or did the Earl suddenly look scared?

“This will end tonight Adam. Unless you fear me.” Wings sprouted from the Fourteenth's back, smaller than the ones he had seen in the Order but large enough to conceal the Earl from Kanda's site. 

“Lulubell let us return home. Jasdevi, I will leave this gate open for another five minutes. Whether you enter or not is of your own violation, but you better not cross until all of the exorcists and this traitor are dead. Use the help.” 

Kanda turned looked at Jasdevi. Had the Earl not noticed his condition? He would not last long and Kanda thrilled at the thought.

The wings returned to the Fourteenth's back, Lavi was looking at him with a frown on his face, and Kanda watched the level five push Lenalee and Johnny into the Ark. As soon as this left over Noah was dead, he was going after them. 

Jasdevi seemed to realize the same thing. He paled, and like a coward turned to run. Marie's cords snapped out and grabbed the Noah, pulling him flat on his face and Kanda finished the job with a jab to the groin. It was a deep wound, Mugen was stuck in the ground on the other side of the Noah's body, and promised a slow death. He had five minutes, he could watch for one of them. 

He was surprised when Crowley, the human version, not the bloody one, combat crawled towards the Noah and bit into his leg. Kanda knew he gained power from akuma blood, he could only hope Noah blood was stronger. 

He turned to look for Marie and found him lying on the ground, hand on his leg. Lavi was making his way towards him. The finder burst from the woods, bleeding from a head wound and cradling his left arm, and set down next to Marie to pull out a basic med kit. Kanda figured he might as well join. 

“I'm sorry,” Lavi was saying. “When we found her she was already dead. Road and Tyki did it, but we killed them for her.”

“I'll take her back to the Order,” the finder said, pulling back Marie's ruined pants.

“Take him back too.” Kanda looked up to realize the Fourteenth had joined them, he hadn't even noticed. 

Marie looked taken aback by the order. “No. I'm an exorcist and have every right to go in there and fight.”

“Your leg is burned badly enough that you can't even walk. You're useless to me.”

“To you? I'm not your pawn, Noah.”

“I'd listen.” Lavi spoke up. “If you don't do it willingly he'll force you.” He knelt and laid Lotte's body gently on the ground next to Marie.

“He's right Marie,” Kanda said and his foster brother shot him a hurt look. “You can't fight properly like this. It took all the generals to defeat a level four, a level five will be a lot tougher.”

The Noah coughed into his hand. “Technically, it was Allen and Lenalee who did most of the work. Or should I say Crown Clown? Allen was unconscious for half the fighting.”

Marie and Kanda both told him to shut up. 

“I can't just leave Johnny and Lenalee.” Marie continued. 

“You're not. I'm going.” Kanda said. 

“Me too.” Lavi fingered his hammer's holster.

“Don't forget me.” For being too weak to walk a moment ago, Crowley was looking pretty good at the moment. 

“Good. I hate to admit it, but it's hard for me to kill and sing at the same time. We'll do what we did to the akuma around the city as we walk through.” The Fourteenth said the later to Lavi, who nodded. 

“Which is?” Kanda demanded. He did not like this idea at all, following a Noah into battle, no matter how much Lavi seemed to be somewhat agreeing with it. 

“Neah has the ability to control people with song. While we you were fighting, we went around the city destroying all the akuma. There were hundreds of them. He would sing them to gather and then be still. I could destroy them with a thought, they didn't fight back.”

The Fourteenth shrugged. “I can't promise it will work as well on the level five as it did the level fours, and it certainly takes more effort to control the Noah and Adam, but it's a good a strategy as ever.”

“And how do we know you won't control us?” Kanda asked.

“You don't, but I you assure I won't. Our goals are the same, or similar enough. You want the Earl dead, so do I. I just happen to know how to kill him. But the catch is he has to be the last to die. We need to find Rasutoru, Lulubell, first.”

Kanda turned to Lavi for a second opinion. “If it means anything, I've been working with him and Allen for a few months now. He's never controlled me.”

“Him and Allen? Where's Allen now?”

“Sleeping.”

Lavi and the Fourteenth said it at the same time, but the red head sounded sad when he said it while the Noah seemed positively gleeful. 

Something to ponder for later, their five minutes were almost up. 

The Fourteenth called up a white gate. “This will take you directly to the Order,” he told the finder and Marie. 

“What about that white creature? If he shows up whats to stop him from following you or going to the Order?” Marie asked.

“Apocryphos? The Ark was created before him and is more powerful. He's tried to enter before and found himself unable. And while he could enter the false Ark, he won't.” The Fourteenth smiled a knowing smile.

“What'd you tell him?” Lavi asked. 

“My dream.”

Kanda was pleased to see Lavi seemed to be in the dark about that one as much as he was.

Marie gritted his teeth, but stayed silent. When they turned to step into the Earl's Ark, he called out after them. “May God be with you!” 

Kanda looked at the Noah. He felt as if he was stepping into the first layer of hell with the Devil's son.


	8. Chapter 8

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The Earl and Neah face off.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Lots of fighting, again. But this is the last chapter! Just the epilogue after this.

Neah wasn't singing anything in particular as they went down the hallway, he picked out measures from one song, a ditty from another. But Lavi knew the song didn't matter, he kept hearing Tyki's suicide melody in his head. It disturbed him more than he expected. 

There were no suicides though. Neah had the akuma coming out of their hiding spaces and Kanda and Crowley were taking them down as they came across them. Kanda with a grim sort of pleasure and Crowley with the excitement of approaching the largest feast in the world. 

Lavi stayed back. He told himself it was to watch Neah, for signs of Allen, for signs of the song to change. But it really was because just like before he couldn't stand to kill those so infantile in nature. And maybe his shoulder was bothering him from where Tease bit him, but only a little. And there was something odd about the hallway they were walking down.

“This is an exact copy of the original Ark,” he breathed out loud.

Neah stopped singing for a moment to answer him, as if surprised that Lavi knew that. “Yes. Which is how I know where I'm going.”

Lavi had seen glimpses of it, thousand of glimpses through the eyes of Road. It had been a home to all of them, and that was the only reason why he was feeling a nostalgic sense now. He had spent time on this Ark, it's where he and Bookman had been living for the past couple of months, but it had never felt welcoming before. 

He shivered, and smoothed a layer of cement over the wall he had built in his mind. Road's memories were too much, always pushing. One day, he'd break too. 

He cast a side glance at Neah. He felt guilty over never teaching Allen how to build his own wall, to even notice he needed one. 

Neah was humming now, his voice not carrying as far into the Ark but still doing a good job. Kanda was up ahead, Mugen drawn, and Crowley was examining a painting on the wall. 

No one paid attention to the ceiling. 

Lulubell dropped on them from above, a watery form that encased Neah's head. Lavi gave a shout and the other two came running. Lavi had no idea how to fight water, but Kanda had a different approach.

He cut off Neah's head with a viciousness Lavi hadn't seen before. 

Lavi couldn't even shout in horror, just stare as Neah's head rolled into the wall and stopped. The eyes were open. And sliver. 

He turned, hammer in his hand and ready to clobber Kanda, but Neah had already grown a new skull and his fellow exorcists were concentrating on Lulubell. She dodged them well, turning her hand to stone and hitting them as they went by her. Only, the hand shattered when it met Mugen's edge. 

Lavi took a step forward to join his friends, but stopped to look back at Neah. His head was back, but hairless. Lavi watched it grow back. “You swear, that after this it's over. No more fighting. Ever.”

“If you kill her before I kill the Earl.”

“He beat you last time, what's so different now?”

“His old age.” Neah continued after Lavi made a confused look. “He's held together by magic, but he's so old it's going bad. Has been for decades. Before, I use to sing him well. Now, well, he hasn't been in the proper health or mind set since I lost thirty five years ago. Plus, his 'Eve' will work for me.”

Honestly, Neah didn't sound completely confident, but Lavi supposed this was the best chance they were going to get. 

There was a thud and grunt as Crowley was thrown against the wall. 

“Lavi, get your ass in this fight!” Kanda yelled.

Lavi wanted to command Neah to take care of Allen, but didn't know how that could be done. “Allen, you said he's sleeping. Is it dreamless, peaceful?” God knows the kid could use some rest after all of this. 

Neah's face...softened. Somewhere along the way, he had come to care for the teen he absorbed. “Yes.”

“Good.” He had no time to mourn now, not for Allen, not for Miranda. Johnny and Lenalee where here somewhere, his friends were fighting, and there were more battles to come. There would be time enough later. 

Lavi gave the order for his hammer to grow and with a swing pinned Lulubell to the wall. She coughed up blood, her lungs crushed, and Crowley went for her neck. He managed to puncture skin before she turned into sand to escape. Lavi shook his hammer to get all the sand off, and when he glanced behind him Neah was gone.

* * *

Neah was an excellent shower singer. True, he had learned and practiced on the front seat of a horse drawn carriage, never having experienced a shower till he joined the Noah family, but it was still true. His voice would echo in the small room, the tile making his voice richer, louder. 

Singing in the hallway, no matter how loud and emotional, didn't quite get the same sound. It was enough to sing the akuma to their deaths of course, but the level five and Adam would be harder. So he used magic.

Neah paused in his singing to recite an incantation and made his voice richer, louder and the halls ceramic to encourage his voice to echo through them. It was Dark Matter that gave power to his emotions, but the strength in their power often resided on how well he sang. He sang well all the time, but he wasn't taking chances today. To much resided on it. 

He suspected Adam would be either in his own quarters or in the heart of the Ark, and chose the to visit the latter first. The level five was in front of the door and Neah had to admit Adam had done a pretty good job. She was attractive to look at and judging by her headgear, smart. There ear muffs over her ears with a scarf wrapped around that. There were probably ear plugs in her ears too. But it wasn't enough. Neah had been singing too long and with too much power for her not to be affected. 

He sang of freedom, of open doors and release, but while her hand moved to the lock to push back the door she didn't open it. 

“I'm my own akuma!” she shouted at him. She didn't have to be so loud, but the music was most likely deafening to her. “I don't follow anyone's orders.”

“At yet here you are, guarding his door.” He sang back, the words full of rebellion and a desire to do what only you wanted. 

“He's my creator, my father! If he dies, I die too!”

Neah laughed.

“Is that what he told you?” he sang, sowing disbelief and doubt. “He can kill akuma, any Noah can, as can any exorcist, but his death alone will not bring it about.” He imbedded freedom in his voice again, of self control, and he could tell she wanted it. 

He added confidence and charisma. “If you let me pass, he will soon die and every piece of Innocence will shatter. You would be free to live your own life.”

She resisted beautifully, summoning a ball of energy to her hand and charging him, but with every step she took the ball shrunk and when she reached him she fell into Neah's embrace. His song resonated through the small hall, of peace, freedom. Of pure independence, of finding love and happiness. All that had to happen was for that door to open. 

“It will come true, all of it?” she whispered, leading him to the door. 

“That depends on you. You'll have your freedom, what you do with it is for you to decide. If you want love, go to Paris. If you want adventure, go back to America, there is much to explore there. But the choice is yours.” He was singing possibilities, of midnight romps and the thrill of a chase, and she was giving in. 

“I want it so bad.”

“Then take it.” 

She pushed open the door.

What emerged was a large ball of Dark Matter. It swallowed the hallway. Neah protected the akuma, flying upwards to avoid the blast and place her down on the ground the level above. “Run,” he sang, the melody changing to the one he used to use to calm Adam's nerves. 

Neah could feel the resistance. During his time away, Adam had frayed and his mind was slowing unraveling at the edges. He was missing things, like the fact Jasdevi had been in no condition to carry out his orders. The old Adam would have closed the door right behind him. Neah was very glad this was not the old Adam. 

He jumped backward as another Dark Matter ball came his way, still singing the same melody but adding a touch of far off glory to it, of the sound of steel and the days of kings and knights. Or swords. 

Adam's frayed mind took to it well. Out came the black and white sword. It quickly found it's way into his right wing, cutting off the tip. Neah added his pain to the song, hoping to reflect some of it on to Adam. He did, a little, just enough to make the fat man stumble and Neah used that to back up. Distance, distance was the key. His song was his most powerful ally. 

Well, and maybe Timcampy too. The golem had just flown straight into Adam's forehead with enough force to knock him over. Neah tried to sing of sleep, of rest, but Adam got up and came charging at him. The sword stuck in the wall above his head after he ducked, and Neah used the opportunity to slid out from under Adam's arm and through the door on the other side of the hall. 

It led out into the city, so there had been some adjustments made in the layout. Or he had just forgotten where he was, too occupied with keeping his head. The city gave him lots of space to run to, this was good.

Adam came bursting out of the door. He was turning old now, using magic that kept his appearance up on strength and speed for the battle. Neah was having a hard time dodging, his songs only able to slow Adam down a tiny bit. He needed another way to attack!

He turned his thoughts to Crown Clown. The Innocence and him had come to an agreement of sorts. Gabriel was still slightly functioning for him, less that usual but enough for him to fly. Truth's Spear was out of the question. But Gabriel was a spare Innocence, Crown Clown was firmly Allen's and with Allen pretty much gone....

Crown Clown had never let him draw the Sword of Exorcism, but he needed it now more than ever.

 _Please,_ he told it, _all this will be for naught if Adam does not die._

Tim was pulling on bits of Adam, his hair, his clothes, his neck wrinkles, but it wasn't much. Dodging and putting distance between him and Adam to sing wasn't working fast enough, Neah would tire before Adam. 

_Please! Don't you want to see Allen again?_

Adam was in the air, sword above and it was all Neah could do to jump backward to avoid being cleaved in two. He hoped the sword would stick in the roof, but it didn't. Adam swung upward and caught the underside of Neah's left arm. He swung down and got his shoulder. Stabbed and pushed the sword through Neah's side, through the scar where Mugen had pierced Allen. The teen had insisted he hadn't wanted his scars healed. 

Neah tried to back up, but wasn't quite healed enough to do so. Adam was coming again, Neah raised both hands to shield his face. 

All of a sudden his body was unbalanced. He teetered to the right and Adam missed, leaving his shoulder exposed. Neah tightened his hand on the sword now in his grip and thrust it through Adam's side.

He had stopped singing during Adam's three attacks, but started up again. It would take awhile for him to build up the power he had, but it would come and he didn't have to keep running all the time. 

Neah flew down to the cobblestones, liking the steadier footing, and Adam followed him. They traded blow for blow, Neah calling upon Allen's memories of fighting. All the while his song grew in power and Adam was slowly slowing. 

He needed to check on Lavi and the others. Ah, there was the door with dragon molding. That meant the door to where he left them was...there!

Neah went through it, Adam on his heels, but he found the hallway empty. No Lulubell, no exorcists, alive or dead. There was quite a bit of destruction though. 

He followed it, pushing Adam ahead of him with each stoke and parry. The sword was heavy and his arms were trembling, but so were Adam's. Neah's song of rest and reprieve, of surrender and sleep was getting to him. Just in case, he included Lulubell in the song. 

He stumbled upon Allen's comrades in the dining room. Lulubell and Crowley were fighting on the table while Lavi helped Kanda off the floor. He caught the red head's eyes and nodded towards the blonde Noah. Lavi flashed five fingers twice. Ten deaths, should be soon. He'd stay close. 

He didn't even leave the dining room. Crowley got in the final kill, taking her legs out from under her and then biting into her neck. When he surfaced from feeding, Lavi bashed her head in. Lulubell faded away.

When Adam saw her die, Neah's song took an even greater hold. Adam stumbled, once, twice, and then the exorcists had joined the fight. Adam was looking his age, six thousand years starting to show in his appearance and the trembling of his arms. His use of magic drained him more now that it had been, and he hadn't been able to finish the fight soon enough. Neah stepped back to concentrate on his song. 

Surrender, sleep, rest. Put down your sword and there will be peace. 

Adam resisted to the end, only falling to his knees after Kanda disarmed him. 

Neah stopped singing, but kept humming. He threw his own sword to Kanda, who surprisingly dropped Mugen to catch it with two hands. The samurai didn't seem to expect such weight. 

“Walker fought with this?”

Neah didn't grace the question with an answer. 

He bent down to pick up Adam's sword. It thrummed in his hand, warm and welcoming, but sick. Poor Eve had been abused for so many years, it was time to put her to rest. 

Neah turned to Kanda. “Is that sword too heavy, or can you use it?”

“Che. I can use it.” He tried to hold it one handed, but had to use two.

Neah watched him fall into a ready position and nodded.

“Good. You want to save Allen right, return the favor?”

Kanda's blinked in surprise and Lavi laughed. It sounded frayed and slightly hysterical, Neah supposed he had caught on by now. 

Solemnly, Kanda nodded. 

“Then kill me.”

“How does that help the beansprout?”

“Kanda,” Lavi stilled his giggles and breathed out patience. “You're holding the Sword of Exorcism. Neah wants you to exorcism him.”

“Che. That won't work. The last time he got stabbed by this sword he screamed like a baby and nearly got cut in two.”

“I've seen the scar Kanda.”

“I watched him get it!”

Crowley stood next to Kanda and placed a hand on his shoulder, Kanda shrugged it off. “Kanda, I understand you don't want to hurt Allen. But, if this works-”

“If. That's a pretty big if.”

“It's a chance Kanda. A chance where we didn't expect one.”

All three of them looked at Neah, who shrugged. “Lavi is right. But if you don't want to risk it, I have to die anyway. You're welcome to stab me as many times as you want with Mugen. But the chance of Allen reawakening then are nonexistent, he'd die as surely as this body.”

Kanda's grip on the sword hilt tightened, but he set his jaw and nodded. 

Neah returned it and sunk to the floor, back to the wall with Adam's sword, Eve, the Heart, in his lap. At some point, Adam had forgotten what it really was. Neah wondered when. 

Kanda came to stand over him, Lavi and Crowley behind him. Neah looked up.

“I'd say make it quick, but the longer that sword touches me the greater chance I have of being exorcised completely.”

He looked down at the sword in his lap, and then at Adam huffing and puffing on the floor not far way. “You lived too long Adam, and defied God where other men would have given in. It was brave and stubborn of you, but stupid. If He wills it, we'll meet among the clouds.”

Neah looked back up to Kanda, face serious and uncertain before closing his eyes. He could feel Crown Clown, it was filled with a bittersweet joy, knowing it was about to kill the one who harmed it's master, potentially saving Allen in the blow, but also knowing it didn't have much longer to exist. He had never felt it so strongly, and wondered if this was how Allen felt it all the time. 

Or maybe that was Eve's doing.

He stroked one hand down her blade, from hilt to tip and back before nodding to Kanda. 

The exorcist stuck true. 

The first strike slashed across his mid section, the pain causing him to scream in agony and hunch over. He tightened his hand on Eve, drawing blood, but kept it in check.

“A,again.” He ground out and Kanda brought he sword around for another sweep, inflicting a wound parallel to the first.

Neah could hear Crowley crying, just barely above his own screams, but when Kanda thrust the sword through him, right through the scar Allen had given himself, Neah's pain increased ten folded and his screaming doubled. The metal, it burned, more painful than when his genes had awoken. He could no longer hear Crowley, just his own high cry of pain as his stigmata opened even wider and blood dripped down his face and seeped under his eye lids. He wanted to pull the sword out, and he could! Just let go of the one in his hand and grab the hilt! Neah was crazy with the pain, he screamed louder as if that would make it stop, to no avail. 

But then something in the sword changed. It still hurt worse than anything he had experienced before, but the sword was trying to reassure him it was for a good cause. That this was a good pain. Mana flashed before his eyes, and Maria, and Allen. 

Good causes.

He embraced the screaming, crying tears of salt water and blood, his throat was raw and he was sure it was bleeding too but he kept on screaming with blood dribbling from his mouth. It was only when Neah felt himself begin to slip away did he crush Eve. She would shatter soon, the cracks large, but it would be after his own passing. Her magic would disappear, and with it Adam's life, the title of Earl, and the need for any of the Noah to be reborn. The world would be...peaceful.

He liked the sound of that.

* * *

Kanda shoved the sword in the wall and stepped back quickly. The Noah's screams were horrendous, and sounded way to much like Walker. He kicked Mugen in his retreat, looked down at his sword, and remembered the last time he had stabbed Allen Walker. 

He couldn't bare to pick up his own Innocence. Not yet at least. 

The Fourteenth kept screaming and screaming, his body now thrashing on the sword and his one hand tightening on the sword in his lap, drawing blood. 

Crowley was crying, muttering something about wishing it would stop. Lavi was just watching, that blank Bookman face absorbing every vowel of pain, every drop of blood.

Kanda couldn't stand to watch, but he felt obligated to do so anyway. This was his handiwork. He knew it wasn't really Walker screaming in pain, but it could be, had been.

His chest felt tight. 

“No, Neah, no, you have to fix me.”

The Earl was crawling towards the Fourteenth like some old beggar looking for six pence and breadcrumbs. 

“You're, you're the last one. You can't leave me alone.”

His voice was harsh, raspy, just as the Earl's body was falling apart. His elbows were jutting out sharply, his hands were boney, his eyes old and lost. This was the Millennium Earl, who the Order feared above all else? This ancient man?

Kanda's attention jerked back to the Noah as his scream seemed to take on a higher pitch and his back arched. His grip on the sword tightened to the point where large cracks appeared, and then the room went silent.

Crowley hiccuped a few times, then called out. “Al, Allen?”

In response, the sword shattered and Crowley's hands went to his mouth. Kanda looked at him in question. 

“My teeth suddenly feel funny.”

Lavi gasped and Kanda turned just in time to watch his Innocence exploded in sparkling dust. He looked at his feet, Mugen had already done the same. Kanda bent and ran his hands over the power. Maybe Komui could fix it. 

But Crowley was spitting something out of his mouth, white clumps, and a soft thump had him looking towards the wall. Walker's sword had disappeared to, and without the sword his body slumped to side. 

The Earl wailed, a wheezing sound, and then, like all old men do, quietly died. 

“Walker was the Heart?” Kanda asked no one in particular.

No one answered, but that didn't make sense. The Innocence didn't break until the Earl's sword broke. “The Earl had the Heart the whole time?”

Silence greeted him again, but there was a sound in the hallway and it seemed to snap everyone to attention. Lavi scrambled over to Walker's body, straightening him out, and Kanda scooped as much of Mugen as he could to put in his pocket. Koumi wouldn't be able to fix it, but he wanted the powder all the same. 

“He's breathing.”

Kanda and Crowley rushed to Lavi's side, eager to see for themselves. Walker's chest was indeed moving, barely, and Lavi seemed to be able to feel a pulse on his neck. He was white again, no, paler than usual, but he looked like the Walker of old. 

“Is he Walker or that stupid Noah?”

Lavi shook his head. “I don't know. And it's possible you know, that it's neither of them. Or that he never wakes up.”

Kanda frowned, and looked at the Earl's body. “At least the Earl's dead.”

“Yeah.” Lavi agreed, but neither of them sounded as happy as they should be. 

Crowley was finished spitting by then and feeling his gums. His teeth were all gone, white mushy clumps on the floor. Walker was still missing the majority of his left arm. And his curse was still evident on his face, curling tendrils covering most of his check bone. 

Lavi peeled back the cloak the Noah had been wearing and hissed when Walker's wound was revealed. It was worse than the first time, just as long but wider. Kanda was surprised nothing was falling out. There was a raise on his chest too, one of his ribs was broken. 

Lavi tried to rip the cloak, but it seemed to be made of the same material as exorcist coats and wouldn't tear, even when the red head teased the hole the sword made. He used the cloak as a whole to bind Walker's chest, but it wasn't wide enough to cover the whole wound.

While Lavi worked, Kanda scooped up what was left of Crown Clown and put it in his other pocket.

As Lavi and Crowley did the same for the remnants of their own Innocence, Kanda knelt down and took Walker in his arms, careful to have the broken rib on the side that wouldn't be pressing into Kanda's chest. No point making things worse. The teen had always been light, but not this much he thought and cursed Johnny for not taking care of him better. 

“We need to find Lenalee and Four Eyes.”

The room trembled, and Kanda fell back against the wall, grip on Walker tight.

Lavi nodded. “And before this place falls apart.”

“Already done.”

“Gramps!”

Bookman stood in the doorway, smoking a piping, with Lenalee and Johnny behind him. Kanda absently made note of the lack of anklets on Lenalee's legs. When they caught sight of Walker, they rushed Kanda and started asking a bunch of questions. He growled, they backed off, and he made his way out of the room. 

He passed the Bookmen. 

“I knew you were watching from someplace, and I'm sorry interfered but-”

Bookman held up his hand. “But being a Bookman is something you've chosen to do, being selected to wield Innocence is something akin to destiny. I understand. Which is why I too could not stand by and found your friends.”

“We need to leave,” Kanda growled as he stormed past, the Ark rocking again as if in agreement. 

They fell into step behind him and he could hear Lavi and Crowley catch the others up on what happened.

Kanda walked through a door and found himself in the city. Face to face with the level five. None of them could fight, and he quickly retreated. 

“Wait!” She called. “I have no wish to attack you. Please, Neah gave me freedom. Let me show you the way out.”

Bookman pushed his way forward. “She can be trusted,” he said as he fell in step behind her.

Lavi followed him, and it was only then did Kanda step forward, Walker clutched tight to his chest. He took comfort in the feel of his breath on his chest, he expected it to stop any minute. The wound from the sword was still bleeding. 

Lenalee and Johnny came to walk on either side of him, nervous birds who kept reaching out to touch Walker to check he was still warm and alive. At least they were quiet; Kanda let them be. 

The level five led them to a door father away than Kanda would have liked, the ground rolled under his feet and he kept hearing buildings collapse, but when she opened it he found himself near the beginning of the hallway they had entered the Ark in. Ten steps later, he was outside and in Central Park. 

He did not expect to see the white Ark door still up and running, nor the small group of nurses waiting by gurneys. Marie was on one, watching the black gate while he was treated and Kanda could see the relief in his eyes when they connected with his own.

Lenalee ran to her brother, who was waiting a few feet from the gate. Komui checked her over for injury, but didn't comment on the lack of her Boots. Satisfied with her health, they both made their way over to Kanda. A nurse had approached him with a gurney and gently as possible he laid Walker down. Lavi was at his side spewing medical jargon at the nurse who was nodding, but all Kanda cared about was how cold his body seemed now that Walker was no longer against it. He looked down at his shirt and coat, covered in Walker's blood. Kanda started to take it off when he remembered the Innocence dust in the pockets. 

Before Koumi could say anything, Kanda blurted out “He'll be okay” and then stormed towards the Ark gate. He nodded to Marie as he went past, and stepped into the white light to return to the Order. The actual Ark still worked, was still open. He figured the chance of Walker waking as Walker was pretty good. 

Maybe. The blood on his clothes was still warm. Walker would have to live first. 

Kanda marched to his room, gently emptied his pockets into silk bags, and made for the showers.


	9. Chapter 9

Lenalee never pictured herself a nun, but it was one of the few options given to her when the Order was dissolved. 

There were no more Innocence, and while there were still plenty of akuma around, especially in Japan, she couldn't do anything to help. The only means of destroying them now resided in magic and Cross was the only magician in the Order. He refused to teach any one else either. 

The Science Department would live on, a different group, located only in Vatican City and surrounding large towns. Not all of their developments had been akuma and Innocence based, they could still contribute. 

The finders were dismissed, those who didn't take up the religious life of being a priest, monk, nun, or joined the Vatican's library staff. She had heard rumor of a few of the best finders being assigned as treasure hunters, but she didn't put much faith in it. 

Exorcists, well, exorcists were set loose. She thought it was great at first, as if the manacles around her feet had broken. She would never have to see Levillier again, she and her brother could go back to China!

But eventually it sunk in; they were a useless commodity now that no one had a place for. Lavi had left with Bookman, to record history, and Lenalee almost hated him for having a direction in life to follow. But it meant leaving headquarters, leaving Allen before he was awake, and she could tell that bothered him tremendously.

“Let me know when he wakes up,” Lavi insisted, showing off the golem the Order was letting him keep. Well technically they were just looking the other way, but they were doing that for all the exorcists and other staff who wanted one. There was no better way to keep in contact with friends. 

But he had left two months ago, and had stuck around for a month after the End of the War. Three months Allen had been in a coma, lying still and white on the bed. Matron and Bookman both said his body was fine, completely healed.

The issue was his mind. 

They had all expected him to wake within a week, maybe two. As Allen or...as Neah. Or even as no one Matron had warned them. But they were all confident it would be Allen. Who else, with the Ark still in one piece and working while the one the Earl used had collapsed into another dimension?

But as more and more time passed the likelihood that Allen or Neah would open their eyes dwindled.

Lavi shared his battle with Road, about how intense a Noah's mind was. So vibrant and full and crowded that one got lost in it, how personalities got absorbed by the Noah. Allen had already been far down that road, it was possible the exorcism was too late, that it had taken Neah but had also taken part of Allen if not all of him. 

Lenalee prayed every day that wasn't the case, that yes, Allen's mind was a mess, but it was healing, slowly, and that was why he hadn't waken up yet. 

Though Allen never even twitched at loud noises, some times his visitors did. Lenalee quietly pushed open the door to the infirmary and found Kanda sitting in the chair next to Allen's bed. He was here more often than her it seemed like. 

Most of the exorcists still around were so because of Allen, waiting for him to wake up in some manner or other. Claude and Timothy had left, she had officially adopted him and enrolled him in a private school she had landed a gym teacher job at. School started and called them away. Cross was in Japan, killing akuma, Sokaro with him trying to see if it could be done with regular blades and just for the bloodshed. 

But everyone else was still around: Marie, Crowley, Tiedoll, Kanda, and herself. A small group to be sure, but being an exorcist was always an elite club. A few finders Allen had worked with, and the majority of her brother's group of scientists were still around too. They had plans set up for after, something Lenelee sadly lacked. 

Kanda was having trouble figuring out life after the Order too.

“Any ideas?” she asked as she sat on Allen's bed, taking his hand in hers. It was cold, and she covered it with her other one in an effort to warm it.

“No. Marie still wants me to travel with him as he goes around playing music. I have no plans in listening to him play the harp all time.”

She giggled. Marie had put on a few concerts in London and been invited to play in other venues. He had claimed family business kept him in London for now, but when he was able to leave he would let those interested in him know. There was plenty of opportunity for him in London at the moment though, and he had taken the step from simply playing music to writing it. 

“Brother told me today he sees you as a farmer.”

“Heck no!”

Kanda was too violent for such a peaceful life. 

“We can't stay here forever though you know. The Vatican gave brother a date this morning. No more extensions. Come two weeks, they expect this place empty.”

His head snapped up at that. “What about him?” he waved a hand towards the comatose boy. 

“He'll be placed in a hospital in the Vatican. Matron's going there too so she'll continue to watch over him.” She wanted Allen to wake up here, at home, but that grew increasingly unlikely. 

“Then I'll go there too.”

“Kanda, you can't be serious. We, we have to start lives you know. The Order can't pay for things like lodging and food anymore, we have to do something.”

“Don't tell me you're not going.”

“Oh course I am! Brother's work will be there, and, and Allen, but I have a plan at least. I'm going to find a nice little cafe, or bakery and see if I could be a waitress.”

Kanda snorted. 

“What? At least I'm thinking instead of spending all my time in this room.” He growled and she quickly continued. “He's my friend too you know! And he wouldn't like this, he'd want us to be happy. And you aren't just sitting here day after day.”

“But, but I did this to him,” she heard him whisper and she sighed. They had been through this before, by themselves and with Lavi and the other exorcists. It didn't seem to make a difference though.

Lenalee moved one of her hands to Kanda's knee. “You can watch over him and still live your own life you know. It's okay to just spend one or two hours in here with him, instead of ten.”

He sighed. She removed her hand and used it to brush hair off of Allen's face. When he had first stepped into the park, she had worried that the stigmata would leave scars, but they hadn't. The only new one was from the sword.

She slid off the bed and took Kanda's hand in both of hers. “Summer's fading Kanda. This will be our last time to see the flowers here, come see them with me?”

Lenalee smiled and he relented.

* * *

When he woke, he didn't know where he was and panicked. He kicked at the sheets until they fell on the floor and he saw he was in a room with three other people he didn't know. They were all sleeping though. It was easy to slip through the window. 

Once he had found his way out of the compound and into the city he recognized things. There was the large red wall, golden painted iron on top. And oh, he remembered that little inn on the corner. Remembered it being brown though.

It was dark, and hard to recognize buildings, but eventually dawn came and it was easier to make out colors and landmarks. He wanted breakfast and remembered a small little bakery not too far away that had wonderful biscuits. He could eat 100. 

But when he got to the bakery he found it boarded up, closed. The sun was fully up, there should be the smell of fresh bread and an open door. But it remained stubbornly closed and when he looked up he frowned. The hanging sign, which used to have bread loaf painted on it, now held a painted flower. 

“This is new,” he muttered to himself. 

“Of course it is, I built it a few months ago.”

There was a stranger behind him, but he ignored him. This difference took priority. “But then where will I get breakfast? Rosa always had wonderful breakfasts.”

Something he said made the stranger tense up.

“Allen, what are you doing here? We've been looking for you all night. Lenalee's worried sick.”

He ignored the words and turned to the stranger. He had black hair and blue eyes. He called him Allen, which felt...right somehow. The stranger had a name too, but he didn't know it. “I'm looking for breakfast. Rosa always had nice biscuits.”

The stranger tensed even more and then suddenly turned sad. “Why don't you come inside, I'll make you breakfast.”

The man unlocked the door and led him inside. The front was true to the painted picture, it was filled with flowers, but the stranger led him to stairs in the back and up they went. The top story was an apartment; a bed in one corner under a window, desk along one wall. The kitchen was right near the top of the stairs, the table not far from it. The stranger guided him to a chair, had him sit, and then started puttering around the kitchen.

A small golden ball on wings appeared in his face and he held out his hand. It landed on his hand started to cry. “Oh, don't cry,” he crooned but that just seemed to make the strange bird cry harder. 

“Sir,” he called to the stranger and he looked up from the stove, “Why is your bird crying?” The stranger got that sad look on his face again. “He's happy to see you.”

“Oh.”

He watched the bird cry, and while the stranger buttered the pan he pulled out a black bird and began talking to it. And it talked back. 

“Kanda?”

“Lenalee, I found him.”

“Oh thank God. When the nurse called me to say he had disappeared between rounds, I was so worried. I mean, there's still akuma around. And brokers who believe the Earl might come back. I thought...” the black bird hiccuped. “Where was he?”

“In front of my shop apparently. Looking for breakfast. Come over, and bring biscuits. He was looking for some and I don't know how to make those.”

“Of course.” There was a pause, as if the black bird was afraid to ask something else. “How, how is he?”

The stranger sighed. “He was here because he remembers the bakery that was once here. It hasn't been an active bakery in ten years. It was the difference that kept him here staring at the sign I think.” He looked over his shoulder. “Lenalee, he thinks Tim is a bird.”

The black bird started sobbing and the stranger cracked the eggs with more force than necessary. 

“I'll, I'll grab those biscuits and be there soon. You'll call Brother?”

“Yeah.”

There was a pause, and when the black bird spoke again it was with a male voice. “Did you find him?” it asked, breathless.

“Yes, but Komui, I don't think he's either of them.”

There was a pause and then a long sigh from the bird. “Nothing we didn't expect though. Is he okay, unhurt?”

“Seems so, just hungry. I'll feed him then bring him back.”

“Good. I'm just happy someone found him.” 

The black bird flew away and went to the bed to lay on the pillow. He watched it do so, and when he turned back to the stranger found him staring at him. 

“Does that one have a name too?” he asked.

The stranger seemed startled at the questions. “Oh, no. I never thought to give it a name.”

“So just this one is special. Tim. Right?” 

The stranger’s hand slipped on the counter and he quickly regained his balance. The yellow bird's crying seemed to have lessened a little bit. 

“Yeah, how did you know?”

He srunched up his face in confusion. “Did you tell me?”

The stranger stared it him, as if trying to see through him but he ignored it in favor of petting the bird. Tim. Timcampy.

“And your name?”

“You called me Allen. I like it.”

“I'm glad. Allen's a good name, for a very good person.” The stranger sounded sad again, but he turned around and gave all his attention to cooking. 

There was a pounding downstairs and the stranger went to answer it. When he came back up, there was a woman with him. And just like the stranger had a name, she did too. But he didn't know this one either. 

They looked good together. He said as much. The stranger started and the girl blushed. “No really, you belong together.”

“Allen, why do you say that?”

He frowned. Why did he? “Because...because you should be together. Have been, for a long time.” 

They shared a look, and the woman followed him to the kitchen to set down her bag. “What do you think?” she asked. 

“He remembered Tim's name. I never said it. But he doesn't truly recognize his own. And doesn't know me, or you apparently.”

“But he seems to remember us as a pair. Maybe he's still there, somewhere underneath. Six months wasn't enough time to heal, he needed more but woke up early.”

“Maybe.”

Breakfast was good and afterward the couple took him to where he woke up. “I don't like it here. It's new. And not like home.”

“And where is home?” the woman asked.

He had to think about before answering. “London. Someplace high.”

“London is an old home. This is Vatican City, a new home.”

A new home. “Why? Did something happen to the old one?”

As a response, the stranger pushed Timcampy into his hands. “Don't worry about it.” And they took him into the building.

* * *

A hospital. The building the took him too was a hospital. Apparently he had been sleeping there for three months. He didn't remember any of it. Why was he in a hospital?

Was it his arm? It was gone now, but he remembered having a full arm. A powerful arm. He'd use it to shuffle cards and to fight. But it was gone.

There was only one nurse he trusted and when she came to bring him dinner he asked about it. “Matron, what happened to my arm?”

She froze, not sure what to say, but sat gently on his bed and patted his knee. “It was destroyed. By you.”

“Me?”

“Yes, to save the world. You're a brave boy Allen. You've done many great things.”

“Really? I can't remember.”

Matron looked at the yellow bird in his lap. “You will, eventually.”

* * *

Lenalee and Kanda visited him everyday. He had learned their names from hearing them talk to each other, and they felt right. His room was on the third story now, and sometimes he could see them coming. Sometimes they arrived together, sometimes not, but they always arrived at his room as a unit.

He liked that. He felt more secure with both of them around than just one.

They had fun. They would play cards, or walk around the grounds. Sometimes he was with them for the whole day, outside of the hospital and in the city. He enjoyed showing them what he remembered, for they seemed to like it when he did, but when out on the town he always seemed to remember the wrong things. They never liked that.

There was Komui too. He was Lenalee's big brother and the first time he met him he asked why he was wearing red instead of white. He cried.

He wore white every other time he came though and that made him happy. Komui was funny and told good stories. He liked the one about where Lenalee went shopping for a birthday present with Komui's co-worker and Komui thought she was on a date.

Johnny came every Sunday with a sandwich and a chess board. Games like chess were supposed to be good exercise for his brain, but what he really liked about the visits were the sandwiches. And how familiar the idea of Johnny giving him one was. Johnny had cried though he when mentioned it. 

A red head came to visit, once, but promised to visit again. His name was Lavi and he wore an eyepatch. He remembered a green scarf too, but didn't see one. 

But when the second red head came to visit he remembered his first name. 

“Cross,” he said, slowly as if uncertain of it when the man stepped into him room. The man seemed to be in such shock he didn't notice Timcampy eating his cigarette. They weren't allowed in the hospital anyway.

“Someone tell you I was coming, idoit?”

He frowned. “No. Was I wrong? Is that not your name?”

“No, it is.”

And that was apparently a good thing. Cross had only planned to stay one day, but because he had remembered his name Cross stayed a whole week. He had lots of cool stories too, all about this idiot apprentice he use to have. He felt sorry for the apprentice a lot of the times, but the stories made him happy. They warmed his chest. 

But it was the way Cross looked at Timcampy that got him wondering. He would pick the bird up and roll it between his hands and talk to it, asking why he hadn't 'shown anything' and then answering the question by saying it was probably good to wait until he was asked to show something. He didn't get it, but had listened to similar one sided conversations many times. 

He knew he knew all these people from Before. But he couldn't really see them. Everything from Before was loose. He remembered cities: Buenos Aries, Paris, London, the Vatican, Berlin, and rural India. He could recall maps and shops and the small people who ran them. But only in conjuncture. He only remembered people with their shops, never just people. 

When he tried, the blurry faces ran together like dripping paint and he got a headache. It hurt too much to think of them. 

He liked singing though. There was one song he always liked to sing, one about ashes and dreams falling to earth, but no one liked hearing him sing it for some reason. He only sang that one to himself.

* * *

It was after Cross's second visit, going on three months that he could remember in the hospital, that he held Timcampy to his face and asked. “What does he mean, show?”

And Timcampy opened his mouth. There in the air above him was the visit he had had with Johnny last Sunday, like a film.

“Can, can you show me Before?”

And then he was looking at a little boy with red hair sitting in a graveyard. A fat man came and told him he could bring his father back. The boy accepted, but his father was turned into a monster and attacked the boy. But the boy fought back, his arm became big and white and it destroyed the monster. Not before it cut his eye and left a curse. 

He rubbed his stump, and then moved his hand to cover the tattoo on the side of his face. “Timcampy, is that me?”

The bird nodded. “Show me more.”

* * *

Kanda was worried, but he wasn't about to admit it. Allen had gone missing again and this time he hadn't shown up at the shop. Nor at any place else on the mental map he had that he had dragged himself and Lenalee through a couple of times. The rain didn't help, it had been thunderstorming all day. If the beansprout got sick, Kanda wasn't going to be the one to feed him soup.

He was on his way back to the hospital to meet up with everyone, though he hadn't heard anything via golem. It was strange, Tim hadn't joined the search but just sat on Allen's pillow all day. 

Kanda looked up in time to see a lightening flash. There was figure on the roof.

Cursing, he stormed into the hospital and jogged up the back stairs. The door to the roof was closed, but Kanda saw that it wasn't pushed in the frame all the way. Trust his lockpicking skills to come back before his memory as an exorcist. 

“Allen!” He shouted, looking about the roof. There was a figure on the opposite side, dressed in hospital garb. Kanda couldn't tell if it was him at first, but as he got closer he saw the white hair and noticed how plastered his clothes were to his body. Had he been up here long?

“Allen.” He was at his back now and reached out a hand to touch his shoulder. “You know you're not supposed to wonder off alone. We were all worried about you.”

“Kanda, Tim's not a bird, is he?”

Kanda snapped his hand back. “No.”

“And Lenalee, she can fly right?”

“Used to.”

“And, and I used to call you BaKanda.”

“Yes. Allen, what are you saying?” If this was true, if Allen remembered, why was he suddenly afraid?

Allen turned to yell at him. “I remember everything! Alma and you stabbing me, Mana, Cross making me kill my best friend, you attacking me when I showed up at the Order, and the surprise party everyone threw me, and Jean, and the Ark, and Neah and oh God what I did to Tyki, and Hevlaska, and Mana.”

He fell, but Kanda caught him before his knees could hit the gravel. Allen was shivering, his lips blue and his eyes were glassy with fever. Kanda didn't know half of what he was talking about, what was that thing with Cross and killing a friend, and Tyki? And who was Jean?

But Allen kept talking. “and the doll who sang, and the dog we buried, the clown who used to beat me up, Road stabbing my eye out, and realizing Crowley's plants where like the one Master had, and seeing the shadow, and learning that Cross was in line with the Neah the entire time-” This was starting to scare Kanda. He almost preferred Allen before. He seemed more broken and still stuff was spilling from his lips that Kanda had no idea of. Just how much had the beansprout hid from everyone? 

“-and Apocryphos killed him, and seeing Lenalee on the broken tower, and Tyki ripping my arm off, twice, and Soloman, and Link fighting me through Timothy, and the feathers in his eyes, and learning that Mana was mad-”

“Allen. Allen stop it. Allen!” Kanda slapped him across the face. Allen dully turned to look at him. And even through the rain Kanda could see Allen was crying.

“Did you know, Allen's not even my real name? Mana named me after his dead dog. Before that, people at the circus called me Red because of my hair.”

“No, I didn't.” 

Allen slumped. “It's true. Kanda, why is everything so bad? The level four, that massacre in France, Moore's dead sister,” Kanda pulled Allen into his chest to muffle the sound.

“It's not all bad. Remember when, remember when Link won that chess game?”

“You didn't talk to me that whole mission.”

“What about when we found out we survived in the Ark, and had something to bring home?”

“That's when I first saw Neah's shadow instead of my reflection.”

“Saving Timothy's orphanage?”

“We turned it to rubble and I stabbed myself.”

“I thought you were an optimist.”

“Maybe I was, but I'm not now. It's all bad and keeps pounding in circles around my head. It hurts, and I just want it to end. I'm so, so tired.”

Something about the words sent shivers down his spine. They sounded like an acceptance of death and a wish for it to come soon. He pushed Allen away from him to look into face. He did look tired. And sick. They really needed to get out of the rain. 

Allen coughed. “I can feel them Kanda, every blow. They're so fresh. And when Crown Clown,” he placed his hand on his overlapping scars and closed his eyes. “I can feel Neah's pain from when he was exercised. It burns and won't go away. Make it go away Kanda.”

“I wish I could, I'm sorry I did that.”

Allen didn't answer, but pitched forward into Kanda's chest anew and Kanda could feel the burn of his skin even through his shirt. “Fuck, I should have dragged you inside as soon as I found you.”

He picked the younger teen up and made his way to the stairwell. Once inside, Allen spoke in a whisper. “Tell me something happy.”

“The war is over.”

“That is nice.”

Allen passed out in his arms. 

“Daisya,” Hearing it's name, Kanda's golem wiggled out of a pocket. “Contact Matron.”

She picked up quickly. “Did you find him?”

“Yea, on the roof. He's shivering, his lips are blue, hot to touch and was starting to cough before he fainted.”

“Bring him to his room, I'll be there waiting.”

“Matron...he remembered. All of it. It was too much for him to handle and he kept rambling on about all the bad memories.”

“He's lived through a war. Those memories are rarely happy.”

“Yeah, I guess not.”

“But this is easy to treat, it's common after recall. He should be much better once he wakes. And make sure you offer yourself to talk if he wants to. Actually, he may not know he needs it. You might have to force him to talk.”

“Fuck no. Johnny or Lenalee can do that.”

* * *

Allen could tell he was sick when he opened his eyes, he felt achy all over and cold. Someone pulled his blanket up and through his blurry eyes he saw Lenalee.

“Lenalee?”

The answering 'che' told him he got it wrong.

“Kanda, why am I here?”

“As opposed to where?”

“The Order.”

“The Church took it apart. With the war over, the Order was useless. Most of the Science Department though found jobs with the Vatican's nerds. They brought you with.”

“And why are you here? You could be anywhere in the world right now.”

“Because...because we are both exorcists. You're a comrade. And it's not like I had any other plans or dreams lying in wait. I expected to die fighting akuma or a Noah.” He snapped out the last sentences.

Allen let out a breathy chuckle. “You stayed because we're friends.”

Kanda opened his mouth to protest, but ultimately closed it. “Yeah.”

Allen stretched out his hand and Kanda took it. “Thank you for being such a good friend to me. I'm sure it was tiring looking after me while I recovered.” 

“Che, no more that covering your ass in battle.”

Allen smiled. “Good to hear. Now, if you don't mind, I'm going to go back to sleep.”

“Not at all,” he heard Kanda whisper answer. “I'll stand guard.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks all for following this story! Here is your final chapter. But if you still want to keep up with me, subscribe or find me at uniasus.tumblr.com


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